Help needed, lowering '84 Cab 8 hours and no progress

[Alex599]

Howdy Pelicans,

I spent all day yesterday with my mechanic trying to get the magical 25.5 / 25 with no success. To give you a bit of background, I bought the car last November and spent all winter getting it sorted out. The last task was to lower the back left 1.5" and have the car alligned. I decided to get the shop to lower the remaining corner as they were going to align it anyways. I had already lowered the front to 25.5" with no issues.

So... living in a small town, I decided to go to my most trusted mechanic shop and ask him if that's a job he could tackle. He said: " Torsion bars? No problem at all, I'll get Jimmy on it" he assured me that it would be straight forward.

I took the car in yesterday, and we tried to get the height correct from 1020 AM to 600 PM. We referenced Wayne's book and the Pelican forum. We worked on it for eight hours. Every time we lowered a corner it would change our other corners. We went from 23" top height back, re-index then way too high. When we then checked the front, we were now at 27".

In all fairness we did spend a bunch of time breaking / removing seized bolts on the back trailing arms in order to re-index the t-bars.

We had to cut our losses, the car is in my garage now and we'll try again next week. The shop owner is good. He told me that we would figure out a fair price (again small town and I generate a lot of work for him with my work fleet)

What did I miss? What am I not getting??? Any tips from my fellow Pelicans would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Alex

[Joe Bob]

Front is easy, rears not so much. It's trial an error. Best to replace the bushing while you are at it. The splines are not the same orientation inner and outer. The Bentley manual has a decent procedure. Read and keep near you for reference.

GL

Z

[Alex599]

Originally Posted by Joe Bob

Front is easy, rears not so much. It's trial an error. Best to replace the bushing while you are at it. The splines are not the same orientation inner and outer. The Bentley manual has a decent procedure. Read and keep near you for reference.

GL

Z

Ok thanks Joe Bob, you may have shed light on a major factor in my failure. The last time we tried re-indexing the t-bar, it stayed connected to the radius arm so I just reindexed it from the inside (chassis). I should have gone the opposite way than if i had done it from the radius arm?

[Lake Guy]

This job is in my list of projects too so I'll follow your progress Alex - keep us posted when you go at it again.

[petercory]

Adjustable rear arms (Elephant Racing/Sway Away) make this a process pretty simple; the stock trailing arms make it a very agonoizing job.

[Joe Bob]

^^^^cheap at any price.....

[Alex599]

Yeah, a bit steep for a one shot deal for me. I'll try again tomorrow and report back. Thanks all

[Joe Bob]

I have adjusted my rear height many times since I installed them 20 years ago. Availability of tires mandated the adjustments. I went from 16x7s and 225/55 tires, to 16x8 and 245/45 and when those tires became NLA, back to 7s but with 225/45 tires. Sold the 16x8 Fuchs for stoopid money. Yes the 245 tires came back on the market but at 3x the previous price.

Again, WELL worth the cost.

[Flojo]

Originally Posted by Joe Bob

Availability of tires mandated the adjustments.

why did you not opt for 7x16/205-55 front and 8x16/225-50 rear?
as far as I know the 245 rear are for 9ers

[Driven97]

Use an angle indicator (if you don't have one, there's free phone apps) on the rear spring plates, with the trailing arm fully detached. Way better than multiple guess and check.

The two bolts near the torsion bar are a fine adjustment. One is cammed the other is a lock. You need thin wrenches of certain sizes to get in between the plate and the body.

Front is easy compared to the rear.

[Joe Bob]

Originally Posted by Flojo

why did you not opt for 7x16/205-55 front and 8x16/225-50 rear?
as far as I know the 245 rear are for 9ers

I was AXing the car and the stock sized tires looked like blimps......I wanted cool, not grandpa looking tires.....

[Alex599]

Originally Posted by Driven97

Use an angle indicator (if you don't have one, there's free phone apps) on the rear spring plates, with the trailing arm fully detached. Way better than multiple guess and check.

So detach both sides, get them both at the same angle (referencing the good side)?

[Driven97]

There used to be a calculator on line for spring plate angles but the site seems to be down according to my quick Googling. But yeah, the same angle should get you pretty darned close to the same height on the rears.

Then corner balance by adjusting only the fronts (well, one front.)