This is a general review for the Blue Ox Trac Bar for the E450 Class C chassis with a bias towards our Sunseeker and Forester brethren. The install was performed on a 2013 Forester 3011 DSF.
Rear Trac Bar Kit Ford | Blue Ox | Blue Ox
Instructions:
http://www.blueox.com/wp-content/upl...1/TT2450-1.pdf
The install appears simple and straight forward. The instructions were complete and well documented including pictures. There are only 5 steps to the install and a grand total of 12 bolts to tighten. There are thoughtful warnings that most instructions lack such as:
- Do not remove all of the stabilizer bolts, just loosen the bolts on the side you're not installing to drop the bar down instead of dropping it on your head!
- When tightening the frame bracket tighten the 5/8 bolts down incrementally to keep the bracket straight.Both excellent tips for the first time installer.
Tools you'll need that aren't in a standard mechanics tool set
1 1/8 inch six point socket 3/4 in drive or 1/2 impact socket. The torque you'll be putting on the track bar nuts will crack a standard 6 or 12 point 1/2 inch drive socket (ask me how I know)
1 1/8 wrench, not a crescent wrench!
Impact gun (optional) : You will have a devil of a time getting the track bar bolts and bracket bolts torqued by hand
Really big strong torque wrench
If you lack the muscles and need an impact gun or lack a torque wrench that can torque a nut beyond 250 lb ft of torque consider paying someone else to perform this install. You will spend more on tools than the 2 hours of labor most shops will charge to install one of these.
Observations not on the install sheet
The 5/8 bolts require 175 lb ft of torque. Tough but doable on your back under the rig. The track bar bolts require 257 lb ft of torque!
You can get the required tightness using a break over bar, cheater bar, a wrench, and a sacrificial wood block strapped to the end of the wrench to hit up against the rig and tire when tightening. Without the block the wrench may pop the tire or damage your undercarriage. If you decide to go the manual route using the break over bars the one on the nut must be 3/4 inch drive. A 1/2 inch drive can't take the torque unless it's a high dollar snap on bar but even then you're pushing its limits.
If you opt to go the impact gun route you'll either need to do the math to set your air pressure to make sure that the gun does not over tighten the bolt along with the wrench and wood block to protect your rig.
I decided to go the manual route to see just how hard it would be and I had to finish with my impact gun. I was only able to get to 230 lb ft of torque on the bolt when I was on my back under the rig using the cheater bar as a lever and the differential as a fulcrum. If the rig was in the air the last 27 lbft would have been possible the manual way but alas I am no Atlas. (The class A bar requires 380 lb ft of torque on the torque arm bolts!!!)
On my rig I could not get an impact gun on the 5/8 frame bracket bolts without a universal joint due to miscellaneous bits being in the way and I would never advise using even an impact rated UV joint when tightening a bolt over 150 lb ft. Had I not been going the manual route I would have tightened things down to 100 lbft using my gun and finished the job manually but I wanted to get an idea of what folks without air tools would face doing this install. So I stuck to the manual approach, tightening a 1/4 turn at a time tightening the manual way to get those bolts tightened. It took well over an hour of constant cranking to get just those two bolts torqued.
Forester specific issues:
- The gas tank interferes with getting a socket on the track bar bolt that hooks the bar to the differential. The rig must be jacked up on the frame to the point that the wheel starts to pick up to get the needed clearance. If you lack the jack stands to safely support the rig don't try this at home. Image 5 in the install instructions shows how tight things are between the tank and differential.
- When the frame brackets are fully torqued down one of the cinch bolts hits a cross brace on the undercarriage. To get around the issue I had to clearance the cross brace using a large metal punch. I didn't want to cut the brace since it is a floor support. That is the one bolt I didn't torque to its specified tightness. I couldn't get the clearance I needed to get a socket on so I had to use open end wrenches linked together to make a longer wrench.
The time to perform the manual install was a bit over 4.5 hours. Using an impact gun would have probably cut that time in half. This is one of those installs that looks simple but really isn't unless you're setup to work on large equipment. In retrospect, paying a shop two hours of labor might have been 240.00 well spent.
Post install impressions.
Having had a track bar on past cars I had a good idea what was going to happen.
Expectations:
- It will be much harder for wind or vehicles to move the rig around on the road.
- Leaning in corners will not be improved
- Ride will not change
Experiences:
Expected:
- The rig is rock solid on the road.
- Big rigs do not move me around anymore.
- Wind is now just noise and a shudder against the rig instead of a steering event.
- Steering performance is unchanged, I'm just doing less of it.
- Ride quality is unchanged with the exception of stability improvements.
Unexpected:
- I hit a curb on my test drive. In the past the rig would rock and bounce after a curb strike exaggerating the effect of the impact. Post install the rig still rocked from the strike but once the rig came off the curb it immediately settled without any rocking or after bounce.
- To test this I drove on some local roads with pot holes and intentionally hit some parking lot speed bumps off kilter. The rig did not continue to rock back and forth when one tire hit something that the other didn't. The driving drama has been greatly reduced.
- Reduced coach rattles and squeaks. The reduced chassis rocking has had an unexpected effect of reducing the squeaks and rattles when driving down the road. I never realized how much post hit shifting was going on in the rig until it was gone.
Overall I believe this is a worthwhile upgrade but it is not a cure all as has been claimed on multiple sites and posts. It quiets the movement of the coach but if you're looking for better steering performance or a smoother ride then you might want to look elsewhere. Shocks for a smoother ride on kilter and upgraded sway bars and a steering stabilizer to improve stability through the turns and decrease steering effort. For me personally I had to pick one thing due to budget concerns.
Track bar vs sway bars and shocks:
I chose the track bar because I knew it would reduce the work the other components would need to do and would specifically target rig movement around on the road. I also looked around for an open box or returned bar on Amazon to further reduce the costs. On a 1 -10 scale for improved driving experience I would give this upgrade a solid 7 since the overall ride was unchanged and steering effort was not improved. Cost wise, since I got the track bar at half price and did the install it made the most sense for me cost wise. However, if I was paying full price for the bar and paying someone to install it the cost would come awfully close to the 1000.00 cost to purchase a set of shocks and sways. The sways and rear shocks are a snap to install compared the track bar. The front shocks.... Well that might be a bit more of an adventure since the wheel has to come off and most folks lack the jacks and stands to support the weight of a rig safely.
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