Spring Plate Bushing Removal - Tip and help

[Chuck Moreland]

Originally Posted by Paul_D

Hi Chuck,

I'm not planning to reuse the spring plates, but out of curiosity...

They might well be destroyed by the time I'm finished, but what makes you say they're already, destroyed? Is it because I pried the cap out or because they've been heated? I can easily make at new cap that fits precisely (I have a wire EDM machine at my shop) and stake it back in.

-Paul

I misread above, I thought you said the spring plate flanges are already bending.

Even so, those non-adjustable spring plates are not really worth anything.

Most everyone wants to upgrade to the later factory adjustables, or our QuickChange spring plates.

[HarryD]

Originally Posted by Paul_D

OK... I'm still at it. I'm determined to get this thing to surrender without doing damage to anything more than the spring plate.

I popped off the end cap of the spring plate tube and have been shooting it with PB Blaster .
I've heated it up with a torch and pried, with plenty of leverage, but it's not moving. Also tried heating the tube with a torch, but it's not ready to come out yet.

I fit the biggest puller I can get into the space. It should be good for about 5 tons of pull, and I've cranked it already about 3/4 as far as I think I can go before folding over the flanges of the spring plate. I'm going to let it soak until I get home tonight, then heat it again, and give it a pull. I might cut the aft ends of the puller jaws off first, so they don't slam into the inside of the fender if all hell breaks loose. Wish me luck....

When I did mine about 4 years ago, I found that placing a pry bar between the plate and the body and wacking it with a sledge hammer did the trick. A combnation of the brute force and the impact seemed to loosen it up. After each few wacks, I moved the pry bar to a differnt location to try to remove the plate in a straight line. It was slow, but they finally gave up.

[Paul_D]

Happy Ending....

These little victories are satisfying (when I don't think about how much time was wasted).
That thing was REALLY stuck on there. I had the puller cranked in about as far as I thought I could go without the wrong thing (like threads on the puller, or the flange on the springplate) yielding, then gave it ONE MORE TURN - and Bang! it was free. No collateral damage.

One more question for the sages... I've never had one of the rear torsion bars out, and I'm not clear about the inner end. The bar can wiggle around easily, but so far isn't coming out. Is the inner splined TB mount something welded in place or is it something designed to have some freedom of movement? In other words, is the torsion bar able to wiggle in the female splines - in which case I ought to be able to wiggle it out - or is the splined mount moving in the frame cross tube?

Thanks for all the helpful advice and know-how.

[GH85Carrera]

It should wiggle out. Since I replaced my torsion bars I just clamped a large pair of vice grips on the bar and tapped on the vice grips. The bar came out fairly easy on my car. But my spring plates came out farily easy compaired to yours.

[myamoto1]

Just wiggle and pull and they'll work their way out. Just be forewarned that if you're yanking pretty hard on them, there's a good chance you'll lose some skin when they finally let go.

[70S Targa Guy]

Paul,
Since you never saw the inside of the torsion tube before below is a pic of my 1970 torsion tube with the driver side TB removed. I apologize for the poor quality but you can get a good idea of what's inside. The shiny round part in the center with some writing on it is the inside end of my passenger side TB still in place. You can faintly see the splines on the outside of the TB.

As far as your question about "wiggling" the TB, if you grab the outside end of the TB by the splines it will move slightly from side to side (front of car to rear of car). Putting pressure on the inside splines is helpful when you are reindexing the TB's to get your desired ride height, specifically aids in removing the TB from the spring plate to reindex outside splines while keeping the inside TB splines in the tube.

I had the exact opposite problem you are having. The inside splines of the TB's dislodged themselves fairly easily from inside the torsion tube but the outside TB did not want to come out of my spring plate without a bit of coaxing. It appears the inside of your TB splines have become married to the inside torsion tube splines throughout the years. Maybe the use of the wheel puller pushed the inside splines inward a tad more and is now making removal of the TB even a bit more difficult. In any event, the torsion bar should be able to be removed using a large set of vice grips or channel locks while applying outward leverage at the same time. Good luck.

[Packy]

What a PITA, I'm glad you got them out.

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, now they are out. Now all you have to do is get them back in at the proper angle. My 1st try was WAY OFF. My Carrera looked like a cat in heat the first time I set it on the ground. The ass end was 5 inches too high. It only took me three more tries to get everything correct. The last time was just to get the adjustment bolts in the middle of the adjustment range at my start point.

The good news is I could do a re-index of the torsion bars in just a few hours after the first time.

[70S Targa Guy]

How ya doing Paul? I am sure you did your research but just in case...I guarantee you this will will make life easier on the install of your adjustable spring plates and torsion bars. Click on Will's calculator at the last word on the last post. Calling Wil Ferch

Side note: As far as I could see, Will's calculations didn't mention anything about driver's weight or weight of gas as part of the formula inputed into the car's weight so I added my weight and 100 LBS for weight of gas and I got all corners exactly at my desired ride height on the very first attempt. Just make sure your car is level when you are starting the TB install or adjust your calculations accordingly.

[Paul_D]

Epilogue:

I never was able to extract the driver's side torsion bar from it's splines in the chassis by wiggling, pulling and cursing. I switched over to the right side, looking forward to the change of scenery, and hoping for less trouble and a shot at driving the left TB out from the right. The right TB came easily out from the chassis, and only put up a half-hearted fight on the spring plate end. Once that stuff was gone, it was game over for the left TB. A few whacks on a 3 ft. long 3/4" steel bar and she was out.

Thanks for the great assistance.

Sincerely,
-Paul

[midnight911]

Right on, Paul!
you always win after all.
congrats! I mean it because I too went through this and I know how you feel...has to be a good feeling.