Any shock is garbage when it goes bad.. and seems like pos when you replace it with a really 'high end' one like Bilstein.
This is a budget purpose, and those Monroe basic parts store piece of **** shocks with no warranty.... he might as well buy whatever store brand there is for the same price because what you recommend are total garbage and an equal to such... but hey we love spending other peoples money...so let's go from I need affordable shocks to buying torsion bars, that when you install ...figure out the entire suspension should be rebuilt, so now change lower control arm bushings, strut rod bushings..and hey you're there so just buy all new ball joints and inner outer tie rods...and really the mopar stuffers from some bump steer...so let's slot and weld the idler mount on the k frame...
What is the OP doing with the car again?
Love spending other peoples money, snowball city here we come!
If you actually bothered to read my post, I told him to buy a set of Monroe's for the really expensive price of about $18 each. Bilsteins are overkill for the stock suspension. They're light years better than KYB's and Monroe's, and they will absolutely make an improvement. But with the stock suspension they're just overly expensive.
My KYB's were not "bad" when I replaced them, which is to say they were not blown out or worn out. They were working just as designed. Unfortunately, "as designed" is mediocre at best, which was highlighted dramatically when I replaced them with a shock that was intended for use with my larger torsion bars. KYB's are used by guys that don't like their soft suspension but don't understand suspension theory. So they band aid their too soft suspension with a too stiff shock. Which results in piss poor handling, because NOTHING is working as it's intended to. Too stiff of a shock overdamps the suspension, and keeps the suspension from working as intended. With an undersprung set up like Mopars are from the factory it might feel a little better by the seat of the pants, but that's ride quality, not handling. It only feels like it's working better because it's making the ride unnecessarily stiff, not because it's actually improving your handling.
As for the rest of it, if replacing the torsion bars shows you that the entire suspension should be rebuilt, then the entire suspension needed to be rebuilt anyway. What's your argument there? That you should drive around on worn out suspension singing "ignorance is bliss" until something fails and you end up in a ditch? Yeah, most of these cars are like 50 years old. If the suspension hasn't been rebuilt already it needs to be. Heck, if it hasn't been rebuilt recently it still might need to be rebuilt, even 30 year old suspension bushings are too damn old.
As far as bump steer, old Mopars suffer less from bump steer than every other musclecar out there. Their bumpsteer numbers are actually pretty darn good for a street car. And if you slot your idler mount to fix it, well, you obviously shouldn't do suspension work. Ever. On anything. Because clearly you have no idea what you're talking about.
