Drop Spindles
72nblu could you elaborate on clocking the torsion bar anchors. I've heard of this but never fully understood the procedure. I'd like to be able to go low with the large 1" bars I have while keeping the stock spindles.
For 1" bars it likely won't be necessary. In fact, for most of the larger bars offered now it isn't necessary, as they come with something other than a 30 degree offset.
Stock torsion bars have a 30 degree offset to preload the suspension, but as the bars get larger less offset is needed. Some of the really large bars have no offset at all. Still you'll find now that more people complain about not being able to get HIGH enough with newer torsion bars (like hotchkis) because they've reduced the offset so much. Do a search on the Hotchkis torsion bars (1.03") and you'll already find a thread or two about people not being able to get the car all the way back to stock ride height (good if you want lowered, bad if you want stock).
At any rate, I'll explain anyway. At least what I know. Obviously, the torsion bars have to be out of the car. The torsion bar anchors have to be cut out of the crossmember, then rotated or "clocked" the desired amount. Before you do any cutting, you'd want to index the anchors, ie, mark 12 'o clock and any other degree amounts you'd want to keep things straight. Then you'd want to make a nice clean cut (blair hole saw?) to get the anchors out. You'd then turn the anchors by the amount you want to alter the offset. For example, if you want to go the full monty for stock bars, clock the anchors 30 degrees. That will basically turn your 30 degree offset bars into 0 offset bars. You'd then have to re weld the anchors into the cross member. The result would be that no matter what your torsion bar offset is, the effective offset would always be 30 degrees less. Of course, you could clock it any amount you want. Mopar performance used to offer a kit to do this, it included reinforcing plates for the anchors, directions and possibly even a degree wheel for getting it right. I saw a picture of the kit once...
BUT, and its a big
BUT, if you do it this way you're stuck with big torsion bars. Switch back to stock bars and you won't be able to get enough adjustment to get your front end off the pavement. Which is why this was primarily done to race cars, because if you switched in 1.25" torsion bars it was the ONLY way to lower the car at the time.
Don't bother for 1" bars, you won't need it. In fact, don't bother for most of the larger bars made now, because their offset has already been altered so the ride height is in the right place (or close to it). I'm not sure what happened with my bars, but I actually am beginning to think that there was a manufacturing problem with this set. And I may just buy a set of Hotchkis bars and call it even, although I actually like the 1.12" bars in my challenger, so we'll see.