James You missed the whole point of the exercise. Factory procedure is to ultimately get the car level side to side. Best way to get that accurate is to measure at the side, not half way into the centre where the torsion bars are. You are just multiplying any measurement errors. Chrysler assumes all parts are perfect (look at your control arm bushes and see if they are still centred –ha!) and the guy has a wheel alignment pit anyway. I’m just doing it the “easy” way. You don’t have to. I’ve had enough of squeezing under the car with my tape measure, and I’m not buying any special tools when I can use a tape measure. Alignment comes after setting the height. So it won’t throw off camber/caster like your old timer said. Why would you think my torsion bars are at the wrong height if the car is levelled at the side? I had my fill of ignorant wheel alignment guys years ago. I do it myself. The last one said “We don’t have a fixed fee for Valiants. We charge by the hour! That was the last straw. If these “experts” followed the factory chart for the camber/caster setting (which I never saw done) they wouldn’t have to adjust the upper control arm bushes back and forth 10 times to get it right. You set one, measure, consult the chart, then do the other – finished. (Read the FSM - at least for later cars) Oh, did I tell you about the one who left the offset camber washers laying in the top of the chassis. Lost my alignment before I got home. Boy, was he embarrassed when I drove back! Or the one who didn’t tighten the control arm bolts on one side. Had a blow out at 60 mph! Couldn’t swear at him because I was 200 miles away. Anyway, that’s enough of my rant. it’s up to you how you do it. I just know an easier, more accurate alternative. Henry From: James Douglas [mailto:jdd@xxxxxxxxxx] Henry, When I was a kid that is more or less the way I did it…until…I took it in for an alignment. An old timer then, c.1978, told me and showed me that unless the torsion bars are at the correct specified height that it can toss off the camber and caster. It also effects the rate of springs. That is why ever since I try to get that 2-inch book spec correct. James From: chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Henry Schleimer In my younger days I would lower the front, but with A body, lower control arm bumper has very little travel before hitting giving bad reactions on hard cornering and bumps. Now I set torsion bars to have the car level front to rear when empty. Lets the suspension do its job. I check side to side measuring from centre of front wheel to wheel arch above and can get that even within a few mms. I don’t worry about height of torsion bar anchors etc anymore. Too much room for error. Just my experience. Henry From: 'James Douglas' via Chrysler 300 Club International [mailto:chrysler-300-club-international@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] I wanted to drop a note while it is still in my head. When I did the front suspension some months ago, I did the standard height measurements as described in the Service Manual. I noted when done the front of the car looked a little down in the front. This past week I had the car on the rack and did a double check of the measurement and it was off by a ½ inch. WTF, I thought that is a lot on a torsion bar system. I had triple checked the height when I put the bars back in. I made a thick steel box bar to go across my 4-post lift so that I could get real good measurements at the lower ball joint and the inner lower control arm. Then I did a measurement, then I bounced the front end. Then I did another measurement. It was off by a lot! I went through this for about 45 minutes. I would set the height and measure it and then I would bounce it and it would be off. After scratching my head, I figured out what was going on. The modern GAS shocks. It is very difficult to get them to stop at the same place when one bounces the front end like one is supposed to after each change on the torsion bar anchor. You must pull the shocks out to properly set the ride height. If you set it to two inches and then cycle the front end and then measure it every time it will be different with the Gas Shocks. The other thing I noted, and this is for the group on 300J and 300K. The manual tells you to measure from the bottom the lower outer ball joint and then measure the bottom of the housing of the lower inner bushing. You subtract the two and should get 2 inches. The problem is that the replacement ball joints have VERY different head heights than the factory units. I went into my shed and pulled the factory lower control arms with the joints still in them and they measured 7/8 inch from the bottom of the control arm to the lower edge of the ball joint. My new joints were a 1/4 inch less than these. So, what I did is use the bottom of the control arm, next to the ball joint and I subtract 7/8 of an inch from that measurement. This way when I do the math, no matter which ball joint is in the lower control arm, I am doing the measurement as if the factory joints are still in the arm. A ¼ inch of heigh difference can be a few inches at the body. Now the car stance looks correct and not nose down. For me I ended up with 8-3/8 on the left side and 8-1/4 on the right side. So, I ended up using 7-1/2 on the left and 7-3/8 on the right. Then add 2 inches to the above and adjust the torsion bars until I go to that number. Interesting in that the left and right side lower outer control arm is off by 1/8 of an inch. NOS control arms and NOS spindles. Possibly the wheels or tires are off a little. My two cents worth. James -- -- For archives go to http://www.forwardlook.net/300-archive/search.htm#querylang --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Chrysler 300 Club International" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to chrysler-300-club-international+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/chrysler-300-club-international/66e30eb5.250a0220.397847.8fd2SMTPIN_ADDED_BROKEN%40gmr-mx.google.com. |
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