Ride Height after bushing replacement

ohecht · 06-30-2003, 06:32 AM

I replaced all the busings on the trailing arms and spring plates (Neatrix), and put the torsion bars and spring plates back together so that the angle was identical (to .5 degrees) to what it was when I started.

My ride height is now about 3/4" higher than it was, even after settling the suspension with a few drives.

I have read that new bushings may take a while to seat, but I do not see how that can affect the ride height if the torsion bar splines are in the same grooves.

Any advice before I start the tedious re-indexing process?

Thanks,

Olivier

ohecht · 06-30-2003, 08:21 AM

bump

Chuck Moreland · 06-30-2003, 08:32 AM

Have you used the spring plate adjusters to bring the height down? You should have set them to mid-range when you had them off. That would give you the needed 3/4 inch range.

widebody911 · widebody911's Garage

It's entirely possible that you're off by a single spline. This would be hard to detect when assembling with new bushings.

Get a magnetic protractor (ie Harbor Fright) and go here http://vintagebus.com/cgi-bin/spring.cgi to figure out your proper spring plate angle.

Neilk · 06-30-2003, 09:04 AM

How many miles did you drive? My car settled about 1 inch over the course of one week and 100 miles.

chrisp · 06-30-2003, 10:19 AM

This isn't first hand advice but if you have poly inner control arm bushings they could be causing a slight bind which would reduce control arm ease of travel and potentially increase ride height. The poly's are not as good at two or three axis movement as the rubber original or bearing upgrade.

Otherwise a severly worn spring plate bushing would have set the stock set up lower than original and then when you changed to Neatrix it raised the car up because the spring plate is now centered on the chassis (whereas before it was sagging).

Just some thoughts.

ohecht · 06-30-2003, 12:37 PM

Those are all good ideas, thanks. I will probably drive the car more to settle things in. I am trying to resist putting too much mileage in it before having it aligned, but I want to get the height dialed in first.

The control arm bushings were replaced with factory rubber ones, but the old bushings everywhere were really "flowing" as Chuck illustrated in his articles. That could explain a lot of the discrepancy.

I do not think they are a spline off, as each inner or outer spline change would make a drastic differece to the angle finder I was using, and I eventually got it just right. The needle on the gauge was right where it was before touching anything, and I checked the sill angle to make sure it had not changed during the process.

What is the best home alignment method for the rear, to at least make sure it is in the ballpark so that I do not wear anything out prematurely while I let everything settle in?

Olivier

Neilk · 06-30-2003, 12:45 PM

Olivier,

Get long 2x4 and put it against the wheel on a horizontal plane to check the toe and in a vertical plane to check the camber. You can get it pretty close so that the car is driveable and won't quickly wear the tires.

ohecht · 06-30-2003, 03:41 PM

Neil,

I understand that for the camber, but what would I compare the plane of the wheels to on the horizontal for the toe-in?

Olivier

Neilk · 06-30-2003, 04:06 PM

Compare the horizontal plane to the door or rocker panels. It definitely won't be exact, but it at least be somewhat parallel to the car and you can put some miles on the car without wearing the tires too much.