Hotchkis LCA pivot shaft help

[--Rebel--]

Hi all,
I'm fitting a pair of hotchkis LCA greaseable pivot shafts to my 68 Charger, following the factory service manual, it states that the nuts need to be torqued up to 130 ft lbs. I tried to do this and the pivot shaft sheared off!
What torque setting have you used when fitting them?

[Mike DC]

             
Do you mean the threads ripped off?  Or the shaft broke in half? 

IIRC those are supposed to be a forged item rather than cast.

[--Rebel--]

The shaft broke in half, I've contacted hotchkis to see if they recommend a lower torque setting than the factory original, no reply as yet and can't find the info anywhere.
Also contacted Summit who supplied them to me and they are sending out a replacement free of charge.

As well as all this, I'm still trying to work out why the poly bushes stick out so much from the LCA, am I right in thinking that a set of original rubber LCA bushes sit flush with the side of the LCA when fitted?
The poly ones don't, they stand proud by approximately 10mm, this is preventing my bottom ball joint from lining up with the top one.

[HPP]

As well as all this, I'm still trying to work out why the poly bushes stick out so much from the LCA, am I right in thinking that a set of original rubber LCA bushes sit flush with the side of the LCA when fitted?
The poly ones don't, they stand proud by approximately 10mm, this is preventing my bottom ball joint from lining up with the top one.

What strut bushings are you using? in some cases, poly strut bushings are too thick and it does not allow the strut rod to fully seat and pull the control arm all the way forward where it is supposed to be.

[--Rebel--]

I'm using poly strut rod bushes as well, I was advised that poly bushes would be a good idea for the strut rods if using poly LCA bushes

[tan top]

to  much torque  , for the  greaseable pivot shaft ,  thinking this because its hollow to allow  grease to pass through , stock OEM is solid    imo 130 ft tq , is a lot of torque to put on a nut on a  hollow bolt  well ! pivot shaft  , if you know what I mean .

[--Rebel--]

I know what you mean, was thinking I'd need to use a lower torque but have no idea what it broke at. Might try 100 instead of 130

[--Rebel--]

With poly bushes on the strut rods and poly bushes on the LCA's ( before it broke ), this is the position of my spindle. As already stated, if the strut rod bushes are too thick when made of poly, maybe I should change them to standard rubber ones.
Would that maybe resolve the alignment problems?

I can't see anything else that I could have done wrong when putting it back together

[HPP]

I don't see any picture at all, but, if the strut bushing is too thick, it pushes the entire lower control arm assembly back, which make it nearly impossible to get positive caster because you now can't get the upper control arm to pivot back far enough to offset the position of the lower arm. To get higher positive caster, the lower arm needs to go forward and the upper arm needs to go back.

The easy fix for this is to turn down the rear position strut bushing so it is thin enough to pull the assembly forward and set the control arm pivots into the bushing correctly. Or you can install rubber and torque them down to spec, which compresses them enough to pull everything forward. Or, use adjustable strut rods so you can shorten them up to offset the poly bushing thickness.

Agree that the greasable pins wouldn't have the same torque value as solid pins. I'd suggest calling Hotchkis or Firm Feel and asking them.

[myk]

Yeah try calling Hotchkis; I never had any trouble getting through to them. 

Gee now I wonder how my LCA shafts are doing.  I know my installers torqued the snot out of them....

[--Rebel--]

I was trying to post a pic, it hasn't loaded, now I'm getting a message saying I can't upload a pic as I already have one with the same name in existence, moving on then.
Thanks for the much valued replies, I've realised that the poly strut rod bushes come with a metal sleeve that they slide over, the original rubber ones don't have this, they just join together (male and female fitting ). Obviously the metal sleeve isn't squishable, so without it, the poly bushes might squish when torqued up.
A combination of oversized LCA poly bushes and non squishable metal sleeves might be causing the problem.
My thinking now is, put the strut rod in the vice, tighten up the nut on the strut rod with the old rubber bushes ( still good enough condition to experiment with ) and measure the size. Then do the same with the poly bushes and metal sleeve, I'll measure with and without the metal sleeve.
Depending on the results, I could just either remove the metal sleeve altogether or, cut it down so it still does its job but is short enough to allow everything to line up correctly.

Myk - I've emailed Hotchkis, it's difficult trying to get the timing right to call them when I live in the UK, lol. I might have just been unlucky with the one that snapped ( if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all lol ). Always worth checking of course, but I wasn't trying to scare anyone. Just trying to find a solution to a problem that's reared its head and from Ive managed to find is only effecting me

[--Rebel--]

Did some measuring and it looks like the original strut rod bushes squish the same amount as the poly ones do without the metal sleeve, still trying to contact Hotchkis but keep getting "the person you're trying to contact isn't available" message.