Cannot get full front suspension rebound.

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71dusterdan

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Help!!! I am pulling my hair out. My 71 Duster, the suspension doesnt droop all the way. In fact it is 1.5" off of the bumpstops.
Parts list:
Hotchkis late A tubular uppers
Late B spindles.
Late A lower ball joints. K781, 783
Hotchkis adjustable strut rods
71 lower control arms
71 k-member

It appears that my upper ball joint is binding on the spindle.
Did I eff up my parts combination? Any ideas? Is the fact that it will not fully droop going to actually be a problem with 1.07 t-bars and Bilstein shocks?
 

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The suspension definitely needs to reach full droop, so you'll have to investigate what is binding up. I don't see a problem with your combination of parts, but something isn't right.

Are your torsion bars in place? I see that the shocks aren't installed, so that's good for now. Have you already torqued the UCA camber bolts and LCA pivot nut? If any of that stuff is torqued, loosen it and see if that fixes it. If not-

If the torsion bars are in place, make sure the torsion bar adjusting bolts are all the way out so there's no chance the suspension isn't just sitting on the adjusters. Otherwise it's just the torsion bar tension holding up the suspension.

The next thing I would do is remove the strut rods, and see if the suspension binds without those. If that fixes it, you need to readjust the length of your strut rods.

If that doesn't fix it, you need to look at the control arm pivots and bushings. I would separate the spindles at that point so I could evaluate the UCA's and LCA's separately.
 
Thank you 72blu. I put the drivers side together and got full droop so I do feel better about my combination. I also deduced that the rear heim joint on my upper isnt turned out as far as the others. Maybe a 16th of an inch. I also noticed that my rubber boot for the ubj on the drivers side was installed differently, so tomorrow it will come back apart and play with it.
 
I'm sure it's no big deal. While all of the adjustable components are great for really dialing things in, they tend to be more sensitive because of all of that adjustment so sometimes it takes a little longer to get things set up properly.
 
Talk about wanting to pull your hair out! So after a full weekend of screwing around. Lower control arm loosened up, strut rod sloppy loose, lower ball joint freed up, still no change. I pull off the dust boot on the hotchkis upper, reassembled, and started looking. The ball joint cup is hitting the shaft of the upper ball joint, and creating the stoppage. I've got a spare lower control arm, and thinking of buying, renting another spindle to rule them out. I've also got a spare lower ball joint, k781, but all the casting numbers match up, so I wasnt too hip on seapping it out. I just keep coming back to the arm has to be welded off. All the adjustments are the same side to side. Maybe I should rent or borrow a late A upper control arm as well?
 
So is the fabled overangling of the ball joints that can supposedly occur with FMJ spindles?
 
So is the fabled overangling of the ball joints that can supposedly occur with FMJ spindles?

Fable is right. The "overangling" situation is one that exists only in Ehrenburg's head. It doesn't happen. He wrote an article which is useful in the sense that includes a lot of details on how to convert to '73+ disks, and threw on his own speculation about the geometry of the FMJ spindles. He never checked it, he didn't verify it, he just said it was bad.

But it's not. Mopar Muscle did a full write up on the swap using FMJ spindles. Not only that, they compared the actual geometry of the FMJ spindles to the 73+ A body spindles. The results? There is a VERY slight change in geometry. One that the average driver will never notice. And if anything, the change in geometry with the FMJ spindles is BENEFICIAL to those running lowered cars with wider tires. Yeah. Here's the article with the actual data.

http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/chassis-suspension/mopp-0503-swapping-a-and-b-disc-brake-spindles/

I use FMJ spindles on both my Challenger and my Duster. Both are substantially lower than stock, both run 275mm wide tires on the front, both have 1.12" torsion bars. All are modifications that would tend to be worse for ball joint life. I've had no issues with ball joints on either.
 
Is the upper A-Arm hitting a spot below the pivot point? My 69 has a gusset on both sides that hit my QA1 tubular a arms. The gusset is a folded piece of metal welded to the frame. It clears the stock stamped "7" shaped arm but not tubular "O" arms. See the pics below of what I'm talking about. You can see what the paint came of from hitting my arm. I caught this as I was putting them on.
 

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Is the upper A-Arm hitting a spot below the pivot point? My 69 has a gusset on both sides that hit my QA1 tubular a arms. The gusset is a folded piece of metal welded to the frame. It clears the stock stamped "7" shaped arm but not tubular "O" arms. See the pics below of what I'm talking about. You can see what the paint came of from hitting my arm. I caught this as I was putting them on.

Good point!

It actually shouldn't be a problem here because of the heim jointed Hotchkis UCA's, but that tab is something that needs to be cut down to clear some tubular UCA's. I had to cut the ones on my Duster down significantly to clear my magnumforce non adjustable tubular UCA's, but they have a very tight "V" shape.
 
I considered that too, but you never know the way these cars were built......#-o

Funny this came up. Just delt with this on my HDK uppers

20151119_182930_zpstkf4wpwf.jpg


A little trim is all thats needed

20151127_152334_zpse7xtecp0.jpg
 
Thanks fellas, my mounts have been notched, and like was mentioned with the heim joints I have room for days. No the pin of the upper balljoint is torqueing over into the joint body and stops. I've got a stock arm coming to compare. I am actually seriously questioning my spindle. All the pics and diagrams i've seen show the the top where the balljoint shaft attaches as being angled up and away from the car. Mine seems pretty flat, like maybe it has been bent. Have to completely remove it to clarify. Hotchkis hasnt responded after the initial call and photos sent this week. I really do not want to send it back again, before I rule out the spindle and stock arm. Anybody got a drivers side FMJ spindle laying around?
 
Have you pulled the shock to see if it's fully extended and holding it up? If its all loose and no drop that would be the last thing other than the bind you mention with the ball joint/spindle.
 
Sorry you may have missed it in the original post, there are no shocks or t-bars in the car right now. Just weight and gravity. Sorry seems i didnt mention it here on fabo . No bars or shocks currently. My apologies
 
Sorry you may have missed it in the original post, there are no shocks or t-bars in the car right now. Just weight and gravity. Sorry seems i didnt mention it here on fabo . No bars or shocks currently. My apologies

OK, that is a pickle......With the adjust-ability of the heims (as I have not used them, so IDK) I'd think you could thread them in and out to create or release a bind. Have you unbolted them, let the Lower Control arm drop with the strut rod installed then adjust them to fit, then work through the articulation?
 
No the pin of the upper balljoint is torqueing over into the joint body and stops. I've got a stock arm coming to compare. I am actually seriously questioning my spindle. All the pics and diagrams i've seen show the the top where the balljoint shaft attaches as being angled up and away from the car. Mine seems pretty flat, like maybe it has been bent.
I re-read your initial posts and the late B spindles are the big question mark in my mind. Is the other (good) side actually drooping to the stop and when it does, is there some clearance left between the BJ shaft and the BJ body? If so, then indeed it sounds like the upper BJ mount on the spindle on the offending side is bent or drilled at a different angle or you have a wrong spindle. Do you have any sort of angle gauge, like is used in carpentry, to look at the angle on the top flat area of the spindle versus the line between the BJ's?
 
The late B spindles are the same height as the FMJ spindles, they should not be causing this issue. This is further reinforced by it only being a problem on one side. At least it shouldn't be the design of the spindle, there is of course still the possibility of that particular spindle being mismatched or worn out somehow.

The hotchkis UCA's can be a little tedious to set up. The one's I have on my Challenger, for example, are not set up the same side to side, but the alignment is the same. Remember that even the suspension point tolerances on these cars aren't that great. So, it's possible that your UCA isn't adjusted properly and is at some extreme end of the alignment window. The problem with that of course is that the only way to really know that is set the alignment on the car. It takes some trial and error, unfortunately. When I set my Challenger I made 3 or 4 different trips to the alignment shop. They didn't want to have the liability of adjusting the aftermarket components, and the Hotchkis UCA's have to be removed in order to make adjustments (they aren't double adjustable), so I would make my adjustments and then have it checked. Which is why I've now purchased enough alignment equipment to set my alignment myself.

While the adjustable arms are great for their range of adjustment, I've gone away from recommending them for street cars. The non-adjustable tubular UCA's out there allow for plenty of adjustment with the stock camber bolts because of the additional caster they have built into them. Not only that, but I've found that the heims don't last that long on the street. Hotchkis warrantied my first set after only 7k miles on my Challenger. Granted, I was using the car as a daily driver at the time in all weather conditions, but that still isn't very long. The SPC UCA's I'm putting on my Duster are double adjustable (they don't have to be removed to be adjusted), and they have bushings instead of heims.

I would rule out all of the suspension components first though, to be sure it's the ball joint and nothing else. At that point I'd assemble everything and put an alignment on the car, and see if it's still an issue with the proper alignment settings. Something else to consider is taller bumpstops. That may seem like a band aid, but again, remember that you're dealing with a lot of aftermarket components here. The bumpstop you're using in the picture may be from Hotchkis, but it also appears to be shorter than the factory bumpstop. If that's the case, you may be overextending the suspension to begin with. I run even taller bumpstops than came from the factory, although that comes from my 1.12" torsion bars and my lowered ride height.
 
Thanks guys. I located a spindle next state over, good ole boy junkyard $45 shipped, so I bought it. If nothing else we can rule it out. On the other end of the chain, Hotchkis seems to believe based on my pics sent before and after, that I may have gotten a 2nd bad arm. They were sorting the arms to dispose of any other bad ones. This time they are shipping the replacement out 1st, with the current arm to be returned in the same box, on thier dime. I really hadnt thought about needing to have different settings side to side. Oh and by the way 72 blu, thanks for the heads up on the heims. I have had my head in the sand over that issue. I bought some rubber bbots for them today, while on the phone with Hotchkis, they gave me a nice break for all 10 of them for the hassle. As long as I am on the subject, Hotchkis has been a stand up company over this entire deal. I purchased these arms 3 years ago, and am just now getting to installing them. They didnt give me any hard time or nothing, just sent out a "Big Brown Santa" call tag, and replaced them. I hope these boots give me some more life for the heims. I even have the heims on my tie rods. But before I bought them I made some killer sleeves attached to late C-body tie rods, I will hold on to them, just in case.
 
Oh and yes thise are lower bumpstops. What did you use for taller than stock? Might be a good idea, this is going to be a near 3 season driver!
 
If you tightened the suspension parts with the weight of the car off the suspension, there's your problem. Suspension parts should always be tightened with the weight of the car on the wheels.
 
If you tightened the suspension parts with the weight of the car off the suspension, there's your problem. Suspension parts should always be tightened with the weight of the car on the wheels.

Only relevant with rubber bushings. Makes no difference at all to heim joints, and in some applications no difference at all with polyurethane bushings either (like poly LCA pivot bushings) .

Hotchkis was stand up with me as well, even contacting me after I posted about my failures on another board. They then sent me replacement heims at no charge for me, and included the rubber boots in for free. Having said that though, I don't expect the heims to last all that much longer with the boots installed. They're a part that wears out, and while they are good for race cars that only see track duty and limited miles, they just weren't intended for street use or longevity that lasts into the tens of thousands of miles. Which is why I have stopped using them in the UCA application on my other cars. In something like an adjustable strut rod, which sees a lot less force, I still think they're fine. But UCA's are like the trifecta, they require a high level of articulation, are under a significant amount of load and are constantly in motion, and are in a great location to collect dirt. I've kept them on my Challenger, but only because the E-body Hotchkis UCA's relocate the front pivot point, and are the only UCA to do that (remove anti dive).

As far as the bump stops go, I use these for the UCA's.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/ptp-19-1318-bl/overview/
 
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