Torsion Bar Swap ---> Broken CV Joint?

[Hoosier944]

Well, I changed my torsion bars out today. Twice, since I'm not very good with trig, apparently.

I used the tilting method rather than drop everything, so there was a lot of prying done to the torsion tube. Also, to get the spring plates back behind their mounts on the trailing arms, I unbolted the shocks and dropped the trailing arm, but not even enough to stretch the brake hoses fully.

After I got everything together (the second, non-lowrider magazine cover story, time), I was quite happy with how everything looked. The car now sits at 25 +/- 0.25" at all four corners. Then, after cleaning up and eating, I took the car out for a short ride to see how everything turned out.

I didn't grasp quite how short of a ride it would actually be. I reversed out of my driveway, put it in first and gingerly pulled away. Ten yards out, I felt a lurch and heard a clunk and suddenly there was no connection from the engine to the wheels. I pulled over into the neighbor's driveway, recruited some volunteers, and pushed it back into my garage.

When I lifted the back up to check out what happened, the passenger side CV joint off the transaxle was hanging loose and I pulled the boot off and found ball bearings and pieces of the bearing race eager to come out. I had not heard any tell-tale CV noises, so this came as a bit of a surprise; a welcome one though, as my original thought was more along the lines of "well there goes the ring and pinion". So anyways, I just ordered a CV kit from our wonderful parents here at Pelican, but my question is this: Is there anything I could have done while swapping the torsion bars to break the CV joint? My thought would be lowering the trailing arm too much could have bound the CV and cracked the race, weakening it to an imminent failure.

I would like to know (and serve as a warning to others) if you guys think this or anything else I might have done could have caused the broken CV joint, or if it was just an unhappy coincidence. Keep in mind, the engine in this car is putting ~350 lbs-ft to the 245mm rear tires, so I'd imagine it could lunch a CV joint in a second if I really wanted it to, the above scenario just isn't when I'd expect it to do so.

As always, thanks for your help.

[968 GUY]

May have cracked a cage when you dropped the trailin.g arm.(as you mentioned) It could dave been a coincidence.

[968 GUY]

Have, not dave.