'78sc Spring Plate Adjustment

[smestas]

I've been re-indexing my torsion bars and never touched the height adjustment bolts on my springplates. I was wondering how much of a drop or rise in car height can you get from these esentric bolts in general.

1/8", 1/4", 1/2", or more?

[autobonrun]

I know at least 1/2". That's all we tried for after upgrading my rear bushings. I would have tried anything not to remove that arm again.

[marcesq]

1/2" in either direction if the adjuster arm is in the middle of it's travel. Just did it last weekend, so it's fresh in the feable memory.

[smestas]

Thanks for the info guys!

Like autobonrun said I'd do anything to not have to remove that swing arm again. I've removed it and gone up and down 3 times already. Whewwwww!

[Neilk]

I want to adjust the ride height of one side by 1/4". Is it possible to turn the spring plate adjusting bolts for the ride height without unbolting the other bolts?

[Gunter]

I went up and down lots of times. There should be two bolts holding the spring plate, one is excentric. Before you losen the two bolts, scribe a mark on the spring plate because the tension from the torsion bar wants to snap the plate to the lowest position of the excenter. Even with the proper 36mm? wrench, it is hard to turn the excenter unless you lift the car, take the weight off. Before you lift, disconnect the sway bar and shock. There are articles about this on this board, do a search.

[marcesq]

Originally posted by Neilk
I want to adjust the ride height of one side by 1/4". Is it possible to turn the spring plate adjusting bolts for the ride height without unbolting the other bolts?

Neil:

Short answer is yes. What I found this last go around was that having the shocks removed while adjusting the spring plates made things very easy to manage.

My project was to install 28mm torsion bars, and new Koni's in the rear. After pulling the spring plates and setting the adjuster in the middle, I re-indexed and bolted everything together leaving the set nut and bolt and the adjustment (36mm) nut tightened with enough torque to keep the adjuster plate in place. Put on the wheels and dropped her down.

After a few back and forths down the pipestem, back in garage for adjusting. Wheel off adjust plate in desired direction and repeat.

With the shock off and the car in the air there is no pressure on the adjusting the plate.
Also loosen the set nut and bolt just enough so that moving the adjuster bolt requres some umph.

After dialing in the desired hieght, I installed the shocks.

Once everything was together, I measured the distance from the ground to the bottom of the torsion bar cover, and found that while the 2 covers were with in 1/16th" of each over, the fender measurement was 1/4" difference. Go figure.