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I just learned something!!.....Hopefully

Started by TylerCharger69, December 26, 2009, 10:55:09 PM

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TylerCharger69

I just finished changing out my strut rod bushings which were in serious need....meaning everytime i would hit a slight bump in the road, it sounded like somebody beating the undercarriage with a hammer!!!  Anyway....I noticed that the ride height on the front end has raised up considerably!!!  Is this normal???  I didn't realize that the strut rod bushings would have an affect on ride height....I drove the car around afterward for a little while to jounce the suspension also.  Just wanted to know if this is normal or not....Thanks people!!!    Ace

HPP

They shouldn't, but it also depends on how far you took things apart to install them and what changes you may have introduced in to this process, plus whether or not you tightened everything up with the car in the air and the suspension hanging or after it was on the ground with a load on the suspension.

TylerCharger69

Well...no more than necessary....Other than the wheel and tire,  I separated the upper control arm from the spindle...the shock absorber bottom bolt... and unbolted the lower control arm so i could slide it back with the torsion bar in order to remove the strut rod.  That's about it.....but keep in mind...there really wasnt anything left of the old bushings....two of them...out of the four, were about as thin as a quarter....(both fronts)  I tightened up everything with the car on jack stands....lowered the car on all four wheels,  tightened again, drove the car for a little while to jounce the suspension back to home position, and then tightened once more.  Not at all a difficult process....rather easy actually...just that the ride height is a bit higher than it used to be...No other parts were replaced by the way and no tie rods or  anything else was separated or removed...Ace

TylerCharger69


roger440

Slacken off the LCA nuts with it on the ground. Move it a few feet to settle and retighten.

By tightening with the suspension unloaded means the bush is "winding up" when you put the car on the ground, effectively adding to the spring rate. Do you slaken off the upper arms? Is so do the same here too.
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HPP

Well, you didn't explicetly say in your post, but if you backed off the  t-bar adjusting bolt to take pressure off the lower control arm while you were sliding it back, odds are you did not put it exactly back were it was before.

In any case, to drop it back down, all you need to do it back off the adjuster bolt a turn or two.

TylerCharger69

No...i did not move the torsion bar adjustment bolt at all....(the adjustment bolt in the center of the bottom of the lca itself)  What I posted is exactly everything I did...When i removed the lca nut from the k frame, all i did was remove the torsion bar retainer clip to allow the lca to slide back just enough in order to remove strut rod. the torsion bars were never separated from the lca.  The car rides really nice now...It just seemed odd for that to make that much height difference.  Theres probably about 6 or 7 hundred miles on it now since i repaired the bushings...so there has been plenty of "jounce" time......Ace

charger Downunder

At the end of the torsion bar where the clip goes, when you slid the bar  back into place the hex probably went in a differant spot.
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TylerCharger69

Lol...nope....the exact same spot....it was never separated from the lca, so it couldn't have spun...installed with the slot straight up and down, and that's the way it went back in.