2005 4x4 Suburban 2" lift

[Irving]

Just a few weeks ago I did my '04 Suburban. A guy from Expedition Portal came over to my house with some tools and we did the entire lift except for the T-bar keys. Since my truck spent its first 8 years in Wisconsin (by the carfax) the t-bar keys were pretty much rusted to the bars. I ended up taking it to shop in Sheridan (Tru Automotive) and they were able to bust the keys loose with a power hammer and put the new keys on.

I'm doing this same thing on my Isuzu Amigo and my keys are also stuck to my old torsion bars. I have brand new heavy duty torsion bars to install so I need those keys off. Did that shop charge you a lot to press them off for you?

Also, it didn't look like you replaced your torsion bars, so why did you need your keys taken off?

[Martinjmpr]

I'm doing this same thing on my Isuzu Amigo and my keys are also stuck to my old torsion bars. I have brand new heavy duty torsion bars to install so I need those keys off. Did that shop charge you a lot to press them off for you?

Also, it didn't look like you replaced your torsion bars, so why did you need your keys taken off?

On these GM trucks, the simplest and most cost effective way to lift the front end is to replace the torsion keys. The lift keys are "clocked" so that they twist the key a little bit more than stock to raise the front end (IOW, they push the LCA downward.)

Obviously this limits downward travel but for trucks like mine that are primarily tow rigs and mild off roaders the loss of downward movement is not critical.

If you look at message boards for both GMT-400 (roughly 1990 - 1999) and GMT-800 (roughly 1999/2000 - 2006/2007) GM trucks you'll see that the "key lift" is probably the most common one out there because it's the one that requires the least amount of modifications. Less expensive and less wear and tear on the CV joints. The downside to a key lift is that practically speaking, you're limited to about 2 - 3" max lift and even 3" is pushing it in terms of the CV joints.

There are 6" lifts but they involve a lot of bracketry - at the very least you have to drop the differential and in some cases they actually lower the rear end of the T-bar as well as putting on longer LCA/UCA. I think those lifts START around $2000.

OTOH a simple key lift can be under $100 if you don't want to change shocks. Basically you get a set of keys for about $30, and a set of either nylon, aluminum or steel spacers for the rear springs and maybe some extender links for the shocks.

Now I didn't go THAT cheap. Since my Suburban is an LT I replaced the rear springs with Z71 springs (Z71 is the GM RPO code for the "off road" package and included longer springs) and brand new Bilstien 5100 shocks all around (most expensive part of the lift as they were ~$80 each.) The shocks I chose are about 2" longer than the factor shocks to accomodate the lift. Other than shocks and springs the only other new parts I added were some Moog extended sway bar links, even though I'm not sure they are neccessary. They were really inexpensive, I think it was about $20 for both sides and they are much beefier parts than the factory sway bar links.
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