Rear Torsion Bar Problem..Stange :confused:

[shanghai_todd]

While the car is being worked on for brakes I had decided to index the rear to lower the car. After reading plenty of post and confident I went with the Angle finder approach as I felt it would be easy.

With everything separated from the control arm and the torsion bar fully relaxed down I first noticed a huge difference when I removed passenger side and it sprung down about 1~2" further then the drivers..

With the Angle finder I have the following measurements:
Driver Side: 31 degrees
Passenger: 41 degrees

So my question is how can the left and right side be off by 10 degrees with out being noticed before? Could something else be wrong?

Driver Side:


Passenger Side:

[nesslar]

It wouldn't surprise me if the car as a whole is "looking right" at the wheel wells when in fact the chassis is not sitting at equal heights when measured. These cars seem to vary a bit in those ways, whether ever wrecked or not, i.e, old age, worn parts/pieces, and hard use, etc. taking their toll.
When my car measures at correct heights/angles, the space at left-right wells differs. Other actual pros herein will be of greater help I'm sure.

[DW SD]

It is likely your car will need corner balance when you are done. Interesting that the drivers side is actually less. Usually the driver's side is more, as the weight for the driver could be compensated by the proper corner balance. Your setup would compensate for weight on the passenger side. I would suspect the corner balance was way off.

Doug

[oldE]

I hate to even mention the thought, but is it possible there are mis-matched bars in the car?

Good luck.
Les

[shanghai_todd]

I wonder if this could explain why I have to use a .5" thicker wheel spacer on the passenger side. I use a 2" on the driver side and a 1.5" for the passenger. I always suspected that something was not right.

Now I wonder if I should set them both to the same angle and see how it sets.

[shanghai_todd]

Les, that was my first thoughts but I used my digital calibers and measured 24.4mm for both, +/- .2mm

[arbita1]

The reason (I think) is your eccentrics. Look at your drivers side compared to your passenger side. On the drivers side your eccentric is all the way to the lowest position and on the passenger side it's all the way to the highest position.

I bet if you center both of those eccentrics, they will be a roughly the same angle.

I had a similar issue. I set both spring plates at the same angle, however the ride height on the driver side to the passenger side was about 3/4" difference. So I had to adjust the eccentrics similar to what you have (just opposite).

[Dixie]

Tip: Is the car equally inclined on each side? Do this. Open the doors. Put the angle finder on the rocker. Is the angle of each the same? What's the angle of the spring plates when you factor in the rocker panel angle? I bet they're a lot closer side-to-side.

[Chuck Moreland]

I think Doug hit it.

Your corner balance was likely way off. In other words, the front suspension has a similar, but opposite, problem. It makes the car height correct, and flat, but the majority of the weight is being carried on one pair of diagonal wheels.

I can see from the ghosting on the spring plate that someone has made an adjustment in the past. Probably lowered the ride height, and didn't understand corner balancing.

This makes for an odd-handling car. Probably pulls when the alignment settings are correct.

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by arbita1

The reason (I think) is your eccentrics. Look at your drivers side compared to your passenger side. On the drivers side your eccentric is all the way to the lowest position and on the passenger side it's all the way to the highest position.

Yep. The pictures above tell the tale. The height adjustment differs from side to side. Center them & measure again.

Ian

[shanghai_todd]

I think Chuck nailed it, I did not even think to look if these adjustments had been moved but now looking at the driver's side I can see what is probably the stock outline. I will set both control arms to the same angle and re-install.

[911pcars]

Once the car is on all fours it will most likely be off. That's because the front corners may be affecting the rear corners. To negate the front end's affect on the rear, raise the front from a central location (e.g. under the crossmember), then see what you have. If the rear corners are off despite the spring plates being equal, I'd suspect either a faulty torsion bar or a tweaked chassis. You can repeat for the front end. Hopefully it's something simple and easily repaired.

Sherwood

[shanghai_todd]

Update: After removal of the spring plates the bushings revealed to be FUBAR and worn/cracked. Looks like I will be replacing these also

Probably will look into the poly replacements.

[chrisp]

are you using the same side of the gauge for both sides? If you are (flipping the gauge as you change sides) and the floor is not level won't it show as a cumulative difference across both sides? If your floor is, for example, at a 2 degree incline, one side will read 2 degrees high and the other will be 2 degrees low. Point being, that the net, 4 degrees will be the difference side to side, even is the spring plates are set to the same angle.

[arbita1]

Oh that's a fun job. I just recently replaced my with the neatrix bushings.

[shanghai_todd]

UGHHHH. I leveled everthing out and centered up the spring plates and put everthing back together at 27~28 degrees and the passanger side sits down about 2" lower???

Could I possibly have a bad shock on that side? Would this cause this trype of problem?

[911pcars]

Shocks don't provide chassis support; the torsion bars (springs) do that.

Have you read my reply in no. 12?

Sherwood

[Chuck Moreland]

Like Sherwood said.

Have you checked your corner weights yet? That will answer all.