front end sits too low

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74Dusted

74Dusted

Stock Piler of 340's
Joined
Apr 11, 2011
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Lewistown, PA
I think I posted about this once before, but I'm still battling this problem.

I can never get the front end of my '74 Duster to sit at a decent/stock height. I have maybe 3" of clearance from my oil pan to the ground when the car is sitting (less when you're driving, obviously) This is the second pan on the 340, I lost the previous pan when it smashed up in after I went over a high spot in the road in an intersection. The LCA's almost sit on the lower bump stops, infact the driver's side lower bump stop is gone, the LCA busted it off from riding on it too much.

I've adjusted the torsion bars almost to the max (maybe 3 turns left) but it's still nowhere near acceptable.

I have 205/70/14's on the front and 28x10-14's on the back, with a 340/833. Did have 185/75/14's and 28x10-14's on it with a 340/727, but went with bigger tires in the front to try and bring the front end up.

I have .890 torsion bars on the car (891L on the left and 890R on the right) and tried other torsion bars. I've even had tons of mopar nuts check the car too, every one of them walked away scratching their heads in confusion. We've never been able to find anything wrong with the car, nothing broken, nothing out of place, that would cause it to sit so low in the front.

The car is on the lift right now and I'm scratching my head, going over it again to see if I can find something wrong. Any ideas, guys?

Other than the ride height in the front being the worst I've ever seen (none of my other a-bodies have this problem), the alignment is spot on and the car drives nice... fear small dips in the road like they were 40 foot deep craters though.
 
Just a thought but if everything else checks out could a previous owner have installed drop spindles?
 
Check to see if the frame mounted ends are not cracked/corroded/twisted.

Can't imagine torsion bars being installed "wrong" to where it was preloaded the wrong way resulting in not having enough adjustment left to raise it.
 
are the torsion bar adjuster bolts the right ones? they have to be long enough to get a proper adjustment
 
Locomotion said:
Check to see if the frame mounted ends are not cracked/corroded/twisted.

Can't imagine torsion bars being installed "wrong" to where it was preloaded the wrong way resulting in not having enough adjustment left to raise it.
Click to expand...

I thought that too, but they're in the exact same location when compared to my '73 340 Dart, but to be on the safe side I ran a solid bead of weld around the sockets to prevent a future twist/failure since the factory welds were crappy at best anyway.

jomoper said:
Just a thought but if everything else checks out could a previous owner have installed drop spindles?
Click to expand...

How would I ID a set of drop spindles? I don't have any spare spindles laying around to compare with at the moment, they're all on the cars.

When I turn the adjusters, I get some ride height, but over the course of about a week it slowly settles back down to the same height, even though the sockets haven't spun any and the adjusters haven't slipped or backed off. Eventually it reaches the end of the adjuster bolt and I give up for the year (on going for about six years now) and the following year I'll put another set of bars in the car and start the process over.
 
hmmm.... you got something wrong going on there. i still have my /6 torsion bars with a V8 in the car and i can adjust mine in and get the pan 8 or 10" off the ground, and it stays put....
 
73AbodEE said:
are the torsion bar adjuster bolts the right ones? they have to be long enough to get a proper adjustment
Click to expand...

You may be on to something there, I measured one of the adjuster bolts in the '74 and came up with 3.5" overall length and did the same with my '73 Dart that's outside and the adjuster bolt on it comes out to 4" overall length.

Neither has been cut down, but the one in the '74 is half an inch shorter. I'm going to look around and see if I can find the bolts I removed from my '71 Demon when I tore the front end apart to see if they're 4" or 3.5"
 
Johnny Dart said:
Why even try............:dontknow:
Click to expand...

I figured with another half inch of adjustment I could crank it up some more and maybe keep the car from dragging until I save up enough to convert to a coilover setup.

But the '71 adjusters are also 3.5", so either the dart is an oddball or my '74 has earlier adjusters in it?

of course, if i could get the problem figured out i'd just leave the bars in the car and save some money for another project.
 
Mine too had/has that problem. In order to get any ground clearance for pan and headers, my car has a wicked California lean. I forget what size tires I have on it but I would assume when I swapped over everything it would sit at factory height. We did not put anything or adjust anything to lower it. That said, it is at a friends shop getting aligned and poly bushing installed so it may very well be fixed. I still have to add a shackle kit to lift the rear more to clear my headers. I swapped all V8 springs and parts from a 74 318 Duster onto my V8 Dart Sport.
 
if it cranks up then settles back down,bushings,bars or something along that line.
 
How are the bushings on the control arms? If they are shot, it will sit low. I'm using /6 bars with my small block and have enough clearance. The original 318 bars were shot, and I couldn't get it to adjust high enough, but part of it was the bushings, which I replaced at the same time. I also bolted a 1.5" X 3" piece if rectangular tubing to my K-frame to protect the pan just in case the front comes down too hard. It hangs just a hair lower than the oil pan (charlies deep pan) so the tubing will take the hit instead of the oil pan.
 
The whole front end (along with a bunch of other parts on the car too) were brand new and nos components when I bought the car in 2006.

bushings, ball joints, tie-rods, etc were new. spindles, dust shields, etc were nos parts. Just to give you an idea on the life they've seen so far, when I bought the car it had 103,103 miles on it. it now has 103,920 miles on it. :cheers: Give or take a few miles, I can't remember the exact mileage but it's right around 103,9xx. Still hanging in the air at the moment while I finish up the header installation, 3" dual exhaust, subframe connectors, torque boxes, shifter/clutch linkage and whatever else needs to be done before the 6-71 Blower goes on the 340.

Would like to get the front end issues sorted out before I set it back on the floor and it makes the journey to the other side of the garage where it'll spend some quality time in the paint booth :D
 
A couple things. Have you ever had it at the correct height? And then it settles back down?
Maybe the swivel nut is/are stripped out?
You have changed out the torsion bars? Or had it done at a shop?
Care to walk us through your technique in changing out the bars? There are right & left bars, do you have them installed on the correct sides?
C
 
I accidentally found that if you swap L & R, it will ride much higher. Indeed, I barely got the bars back in. That was my 69 Dart slant decades ago, when I was much dumber. I drove it for years until stolen, and it did settle a bit so I got the height right with plenty of adjustment left. People say if you swap them, they will eventually snap. I don't recommend, but could be a poor-boy solution. I have read of bars snapping (or anchor failing) while driving and no loss of control, just a surprise.
 
Depending on how much they "sag", you can "clock" them a notch to get it to sit higher. Kind of hard to explain, but you need to have the front jacked up so the LCA's hang totally free and pull the t bars out. Adjust the adjustment bolts all the way out and get the adjuster tab so it's all the way against the adjustment bolt block (don't know if I'm using proper nomenclatures) and then slide the t bars back in. It might take some wrestling. Like I said, it depends on how twisted the bars are. If they are twisted enough, it shouldn't be too hard. DISCLAIMER: This is by no means the best method of fixing your problem. The best method would be buying new bars. I have done this once, but got new bars a couple days later.
 
Johnny Dart said:
I told you the problem, but you wouldn't even acknowledge what I had to say.

So,like I said...Why even try ?
Click to expand...

You mean your post that asked me if adjusting the torsion bars raised the front of the car? I can't remember the exact phrasing, I just scrolled up to check it to see what it was again and I see it's been editted to say 'eat at joes' I believe it was somewhere around 2 lines in length, although I can't be certain of that.

Even though I did respond to your post, I didn't qoute it, but I did respond.

To the others, sorry since I didn't qoute you either to indicate a direct response. I'll add some pictures in the morning and detail the various installation/adjustment methods i've tried over the last few years. I'm heading off to get some sleep, it's been a long day.
 
Depending on how much they "sag", you can "clock" them a notch to get it to sit higher.

Yes, that is what my (and maybe Joe & Johnny also) where getting too. I wanted to see how he has been installing the bars to see if he has clocked them correctly to begin with. BTW, why would it be a bad thing to reclock? I cannot imagine a bar twisting enough to get an extra notch. OTOH, I don't have a lot of experience with torsion bars either...
C
 
The torsion bars were installed with the adjuster bolts screwed in to far.
This is why you have run out of adjustment room on the bolts.

Put the car on stands,loosen torsion bar, bolts, back torsion bars out from lower control arm,loosen the adjuster bolts almost all the way out,reinstall torsion bars,tighten the adjuster bolts. Done
Now you should have all the adjustment necessary.
 
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