torsion plate angle setting question
 

In the process of lowering my car. I have removed the rear shock and the lower rearward bolt from the torsion bar cover and measured the incline of the torsion plate at 33 degrees with car level. I fully expected this to remove all residual stress from the torsion bar but, when I unbolted the trailing arm the plate moved further to 39 degrees. Is this normal?

Should the sway bar have been removed prior to measuring the angle, I saw no mention of this in the archives. I also assume it will be necessary to rebolt the trailing arm to verify the resultant angle each time the torsion bar is indexed.

Thanks,

IMO..the influence of a sway bar or any other interference with a "natural" droop .....must be eliminated to gauge where you are... or where you want to be.

- Wil

Like Wil said the swaybar must be removed but more importantly the bottom rear bolt on the spring plate cover must be removed to release the spacer behind it.
The spring plate will generally come in contact with the spacer before the bar is relaxed if you are using stock T-bars.

If you have disassembled it without getting an accurate measurement then you should just trust the springplate calculator at: http://www.rennlight.com/cgi-bin/spring.cgi

You might want to make sure that the adjustment on your springplates is in the middle of the range so you can go back or forth to get it right.

It's normal. You have the proper procedure underway. Unhook the spring arm, and remove the bottom bolt and spacer from the spring arm cup. Then measure the spring arm inclination. Yours is 39 degrees.

As you've found out, the trailing arm keeps the spring arm from fully extending. Do not reattach the trailing arm until you have the spring arms re-indexed to the new inclination. Otherwise you'll get inconsistent results. The sway bar does not matter. It's attached to the trailing arm, and not the spring arm.