Torsion bar help 1970 dodge dart.
- Thread starter pheats
- Start date
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Totally agree. And, worse, there’s about a 99.9% chance the alignment is completely wrong. If the UCA’s are stock there’s pretty much no chance at all there’s enough adjustment at that ride height to get anything near normal alignment specs.
Sorry pheats, but I can’t say I’m very optimistic about your chances at that shop. On the bright side, if you have a floor jack, a couple of jack stands, and even a basic complement of tools, we can probably talk you through what you need to do if you download a shop manual.
The most infuriating thing to me about some of these suspension/alignment issues is that the suspension on these cars is pretty easily adjusted. A little common sense does wonders. I mean, I understand that not everyone is mechanical, but, people that work at shops doing this kind of work sure as heck should be. But I bought my own alignment gear because there’s a bunch of alignment techs out there that can’t figure out camber bolts, so maybe it shouldn’t surprise me.
In my opinion this is a installation error. I have installed these bars on all different engine applications and have never had to have the adjusters that far backed out. To me it looks like they have the clocking of the lca wrong. Like they had separated the lca from the spindle to take the tension off and then installed without the lca being connected to the uca via the spindle. Please let us know how you make out.
Thanks
James From
PST Marketing
Thanks
James From
PST Marketing
KJoeZ61
Well-Known Member
Just asking here. I just put PST 1.03 bars in my 71 Scamp and had the adjusters all the way out and the car is still raised. Your saying the control arms should have been raised with no weight on it?
No. The LCA’s should still hang on the upper bump stops when there’s no weight and the adjusting bolts should still be contacting the adjuster lever at that point.
But, during installation you should install the bars into the hex ends of the LCA with the LCA at no lower than about a 45* angle. If the torsion bar hex doesn’t line up at that point, you should lift the LCA until the flats line up, rather than force the LCA lower or slide it out of the K frame so it can hang down lower.
The procedure in the factory manual calls for the LCA to hang down as far as it will go during installation of the torsion bars. But with larger torsion bars, and bars with different amounts of indexing (ie, not the factory index), that’s not always the case. You have to pay attention to the clocking, because larger bars will twist much less, so you often want to install them with the LCA close to the location you want it to be at ride height. And obviously you want to make sure the torsion bar adjusting lever/socket is where it needs to be with the adjuster, because with the adjusters out you could have the lever/socket clocked incorrectly even with the LCA in the right position.
KJoeZ61
Well-Known Member
That makes it clearer, thank you.
Johnny Dart
Well-Known Member
This has absolutely nothing to do with the size of the bars, or slant six/small block.
This is completely an operator error. Translation....Your shop has absolutely no idea
wtf they are doing. If you cant do this yourself, its time to find another shop that can.
This is completely an operator error. Translation....Your shop has absolutely no idea
wtf they are doing. If you cant do this yourself, its time to find another shop that can.
BigBlockMopar
BigBlockMember
As for the 'wrong clocking'... as, they installed the bars 'one flat' off... think about how much angle one flat is to the next one...: it's a 60 degree angle!
IMO there's no way you can 'mis-clock' a (thicker) torsion bar and still get the LCA/suspension bolted together again.
If the PST bars have a 20° twist for each L and R bar, then it's way more likely the bars have been switched left to right.
IMO there's no way you can 'mis-clock' a (thicker) torsion bar and still get the LCA/suspension bolted together again.
If the PST bars have a 20° twist for each L and R bar, then it's way more likely the bars have been switched left to right.
I promise you can mis-clock a set of larger torsion bars. I did it myself with the 1.12” bars in my Challenger the first time I installed them. It can in fact be done if the indexing doesn’t put a single flat right in the middle of the range of travel of the LCA. One flat at the top of the range of travel, the other at the bottom. This is even easier to do if you have tubular LCA’s, because they will hang almost straight down on the LCA pins and not hit the K, unlike stock LCA’s.
And that assumes you have the adjuster levers in the right place during installation. Like I said, it can be done on at least some larger torsion bars. Maybe not all larger bars, because it is indexing dependant, but it is possible with some.
daves66valiant
68 Dart 340/727:66 Signet Vert 340/5spd: 68 D100
Son of a *****!!!! Glad I found this post to confirm that something was a little jacked when I installed my new PST bars. I followed the FSM for torsion bar install. Front end is wayyyy up. Like the torsion bars were on roids. Thankfully, easy fix on the lift with the right torsion bar removal tool. Whew!! Was scratching my head before seeing this. Thx again FABO.
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Nice! This forum has saved me from countless jams too. I'll be grateful to the folks here forever.
Your car looks amazing, by the way! The black wheels are just perfection with the combination of paint and redline tires.
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