With truck weight and all 4 wheels on the ground I cranked on the two big torsion bar adjusting nuts til got front-end stance where msny recommend is best 1-1/2 to 2 inches between top of LCA and bottom of rubber stop. Later had to jack up truck and put on jacks stands to make room to work underneath. When took off the jack stands and put truck back on the floor-the frontend was now 3-4 inches lower and the top of front wheels had vert noticeable inward tilt. It's like the torsion bars were completely detensioned!! How did this happen???

 

Well I do not know if you did this but, when you adjust the torsion bars you have to jump up and down on the bumper, well actually bounce the front end to get it to settle prior to measuring.
So possibly when you jacked it up the suspension "reset" when the pressure was let of it....... hope that makes sense.

 

When I use to do alignments I always took weight off torsion bars before cranking on them, make adjustments then lower and check and of course bounce suspension to settle hight. I did not want bolts to lift the vehicle, they were not designed for that. They were designed for hold bars in place. I saw a guy strip where the bolt threaded into using an air gun to raise car.

 

I would suggest that you adjust the torsion bars according to the Volare service manual and not to what looks good to you. If you adjust wrong, it throws off the entire suspension geometry. When you get it right, if the stance is to high, use drop spindles. Also, before you readjust everything, make sure all of the parts are engaged properly. It sounds like you completely
unloaded the t-bars when you jacked it up.


Larry,

Former Volare designer

 

Thanks Sparky, Kurt and Larry,

I did not know about bouncing front end up and down. Soon after what I described happened my new tires and wheels came in. Fortunately the tire shop only 2 miles away so I drove it over there-was pretty squirrely. Younger guy who did alignment not very familiar with Volare torsion bar setup so with truck sitting on the alignment rack with the weight on the suspension he first adjusted the torsion bars by turning them with socket/ratchet and cheater bar til we got the 2 inch height between the bottom of rubber stop and LCA. He then did the alignment. Looks and drives much much better.
My inspection of the adj bolts now I have truck back in my shop is threads look good-don't see any indication of stripping-even though we cranked the bars with weight on.

Now that I know from you three the correct way to make the adjustment which I understand to be- i. e. take the weight off before turning the adj nuts-then set back on floor and bounce front end up and down-then take measurements-repeat as necessary - I have two followup Q.s:

1. Should I take back to the alignment shop to recheck and if so have them do anything different than what previously done?

2. Larry-I do not have access to Volare service manual. Any chance you would be willing to do those of us on this forum a service and give us the correct procedure from the manual?

Thanks all-really appreciate the help.

 

There's a copy of the service manual on Dodge Diplomat - Farley's Page