Clocking lower control arms and PST 1.03 torsion bars. 72 Dart

[hula]

Called PST today and they said raise the arms all the way up to the frame with the bump stops off and have the adjuster bolt screwed in about half way. So I let the LCAs hang down and put the adjuster arm level with the LCA then screw the adjuster bolt in enough to contact the adjuster

arm. I then engaged the the rear hex of the torsion bar and the held the front hex that goes in the LCA up next to the arm as I raised the LCA and adjuster arm until the front hex slid in the LCA. The pictures are where the LCA is engaged with the torsion bar and the relation of the bump stop. I have a great deal of adjuster bolt screwed out as you can see. Am I on the right track?

 

[TrailBeast]

Called PST today and they said raise the arms all the way up to the frame with the bump stops off and have the adjuster bolt screwed in about half way. So I let the LCAs hang down and put the adjuster arm level with the LCA then screw the adjuster bolt in enough to contact the adjusterView attachment 1715169255 View attachment 1715169256 View attachment 1715169257 View attachment 1715169258 arm. I then engaged the the rear hex of the torsion bar and the held the front hex that goes in the LCA up next to the arm as I raised the LCA and adjuster arm until the front hex slid in the LCA. The pictures are where the LCA is engaged with the torsion bar and the relation of the bump stop. I have a great deal of adjuster bolt screwed out as you can see. Am I on the right track?

I do it slightly different but as long as the bars go in you should be good, as I don't think you could get it wrong without the arm being super obviously out of place.

The 1.03 bars don't take near as much bolt adjustment to get the car up where it was before.

 

[72bluNblu]

Judging by the angle of the adjusting block in the second two pictures, you haven't seated the adjusting bolt into the torsion bar hex lever yet. Which means it will screw in a lot further before there's actually any tension on it. The block should be about parallel to the flat of the lever with the bolt seated into the cup. You're not there yet.

 

[MOPAROFFICIAL]

Get the car in the air if you haven't... then back the torsion bar adjusters out and aim the arms down at near 4 and 8 o'clock to line them up with the t bars

 

[TrailBeast]

Get the car in the air if you haven't... then back the torsion bar adjusters out and aim the arms down at near 4 and 8 o'clock to line them up with the t bars

I put 1.03's in my 73 Dart and had to separate the upper and lower halves of the hub (2 piece), then pull the lower arm down until the bar ends lined up.
Otherwise the lower control arm wouldn't go down far enough for the hex ends to match up with the sockets.

 

[72bluNblu]

I put 1.03's in my 73 Dart and had to separate the upper and lower halves of the hub (2 piece), then pull the lower arm down until the bar ends lined up.
Otherwise the lower control arm wouldn't go down far enough for the hex ends to match up with the sockets.

Typically with large torsion bars you install the bars with the LCA's positioned close to where they will be at ride height, not hanging all the way down against the K frame like with the factory bars. It depends on the built in offset of the bars though. Large bars with zero, or near-zero offset will only install with the LCA's lifted up near ride height. I'm not sure what the offset on the 1.03" bars is now, I know it used to be zero but that changed when too many people complained about not being able to get the cars all the way back up to factory ride height. The factory instructions are for a torsion bar with 20* of built in offset.

 

[TrailBeast]

Typically with large torsion bars you install the bars with the LCA's positioned close to where they will be at ride height, not hanging all the way down against the K frame like with the factory bars. It depends on the built in offset of the bars though. Large bars with zero, or near-zero offset will only install with the LCA's lifted up near ride height. I'm not sure what the offset on the 1.03" bars is now, I know it used to be zero but that changed when too many people complained about not being able to get the cars all the way back up to factory ride height. The factory instructions are for a torsion bar with 20* of built in offset.

That is correct that they "used to be zero clocked".
I made sure I got the newer ones that are OE clocked on the hex offset.
They all only go in one way, cause there is NO way you could get them off by a whole hex flat without it being really obvious.

 

[72bluNblu]

That is correct that they "used to be zero clocked".
I made sure I got the newer ones that are OE clocked on the hex offset.
They all only go in one way, cause there is NO way you could get them off by a whole hex flat without it being really obvious.

That's not really true about all of them only being able to be installed in one position. It totally depends on the built in clocking of the bar. On a lot of bars you can actually get to two different install locations. One with the LCA's all the way down, the other with the LCA lifted up. On a car that's lowered significantly, there can be benefits to installing the bars with the LCA's lifted up above ride height. Then the adjusters are screwed most of the way in at the lowered ride height, instead of hanging all the way out of the LCA's.

The other thing is that if you use tubular LCA's the LCA never hits the K frame. So the LCA will literally hang straight down. Needless to say, if you install the bars with the LCA near that location, you'll be riding round like a 4x4 even with the adjusters backed all the way out.

 

[TrailBeast]

That's not really true about all of them only being able to be installed in one position. It totally depends on the built in clocking of the bar. On a lot of bars you can actually get to two different install locations. One with the LCA's all the way down, the other with the LCA lifted up. On a car that's lowered significantly, there can be benefits to installing the bars with the LCA's lifted up above ride height. Then the adjusters are screwed most of the way in at the lowered ride height, instead of hanging all the way out of the LCA's.

The other thing is that if you use tubular LCA's the LCA never hits the K frame. So the LCA will literally hang straight down. Needless to say, if you install the bars with the LCA near that location, you'll be riding round like a 4x4 even with the adjusters backed all the way out.

And why I said it's really obvious if gotten wrong.

 

[hula]

When you talk about "clocking" you're referring to the position of the torsion hex in the control arm correct? Does it matter what position the hex is in the rear? My LCA bump stop is about 1/2-3/4 inch from the frame and the adjuster bolt is against the adjusting arm with at least 2 inches of tension adjustment. I assume when I let the car down the bumpstop will be close to or on the frame and I'll have plenty of adjustment up.

 

[pishta]

I remember using a big *** pipe wrench on the bar receiver and using my feet to push in on the wrench to force the LCA's down. Just got them in that way. Stock .870 bars.

 

[TrailBeast]

When you talk about "clocking" you're referring to the position of the torsion hex in the control arm correct? Does it matter what position the hex is in the rear? My LCA bump stop is about 1/2-3/4 inch from the frame and the adjuster bolt is against the adjusting arm with at least 2 inches of tension adjustment. I assume when I let the car down the bumpstop will be close to or on the frame and I'll have plenty of adjustment up.
View attachment 1715169555

Clocking as we call it is the hex on one end in relation to the hex on the other.
You might have noticed this like when the bars are laying on a flat surface one end is not on a flat of the hex like the other.
The old style bars from PST used to have the hexes lined up and people were having problems getting the height back.
The newer bars are clocked about 20% like the factory bars and don't have that problem.

Like I said up there, it's pretty much impossible to get the bars in and not have them in the right orientation without it being really obvious.

Also, unlike the stock bars the 1.03 bars don't take near as much on the adjuster bolt to make the suspension react, so your needed travel on the adjuster will be less to get back to ride height.
You should have WAY more adjustment than you did before with less travel of the adjuster.