04 F-250 lower trac bar bracket broken?

Matt Saunoras · July 23, 2015

Got a truck here in the shop with an unstable front end and found the lower trac bar bracket is cracked all the way through.This truck does have a leveling kit with a relocation bracket that probably aided in stressing the original piece to failure. The relocation bracket uses one bolt that holds it to the old bracket, this bolt is all that's holding the trac bar on right now. Now the broken piece is actually part of the front axle housing on a 99-04 super duty, it's not serviceable from Ford. At my service managers request I did some digging around on the Internet and found a few cases of this happening. Also found that Performance Metal Fab (PMF) makes a replacement piece. You cut off the bracket portion of the axle while leaving the spring saddle in place. PMFs bracket actually uses the ubolts to center itself and ubolt nuts to help attach the part.

http://www.pmfsuspension.com/19995-2004-F-250350-Excursion-Replacement-OEM-Trackbar-Mount_p_91.htmlI called PMF and they explained all this to me but there is welding required to properly attach the new bracket.We got the customer to order this bracket and an adjustable trac bar to recenter the axle. We basically own this truck now, another guy in the shop did balljoints, drag link, shocks, etc to correct this. We'll see how it goes, I'll take some pics along the way.

cbriggs · July 23, 2015

I've seen a few of those do that. One was on warranty when it happened, but we called abuse, and had a machine shop weld it up. Truck is still going, that was in 05 or 06 I think.

Matt Saunoras · August 7, 2015

Man this is not going well. I got the new weld in bracket parts in and a slightly longer adjustable trac bar. I have everything mocked up but the damn bracket puts the trac bar too close to the tierod. It'll hit full lock either way.

I'm not real sure what to do yet, it's been a long ass day and my brain needs a break.

nelsona19 · August 7, 2015

why not just clearance it? :evil: :flamethrower:

Matt Saunoras · August 9, 2015

I called PMF and it seems the reason nothing lines up is the front springs on this truck. The axle is positioned rearward due to the lift which knocks the trac bar way out of alignment, not length wise but front to back.

Even though the customer provided an adjustable trac bar it won't work without modification. Basically I found the reason the original bar bracket broke. It wasn't being stressed side to side like it normally would but rather it pulled the bracket off the front of the axle.

The only thing I could come up with was to press out the bushings and put opposite bends in both ends of the new trac bar. The bushings will sit in the brackets correctly with the lower bracket positioned back away from the tie rod. I've spent countless time on this damn thing, most of it while laying on the creeper scratching my head.

Matt Saunoras · August 11, 2015

Alright this beast is done, everything went as well as I could hope given my skill level. I'll chalk it up as a learning experience. Once again my service manager sticks me in a bind and I bail his ass out. I'm not in the mood for modesty.

In the second pic you can see how the trac bar needed bent to fit correctly. I managed to press the bushings out and reinstall them without damaging them, they are dimensionally the same as the 05+ trac bar bushing. Bending those ends was one hell of a chore, I can't tell you how much pressure I had on that thing while heating it in the press. It was a lot.

Everything clears pretty well though, not perfect but good enough. The front end feels much better drivng down the road. Hopefully it works out for a while.