California Suspension torsion bars

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lemondana

lemondana

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Anyone on here purchase and install a set of these California Suspension torsion bars back in the late 80's? I bought a set of 1.14 bars for mu 69 Coronet R/T. Fast forward-I had removed them 13 years ago and am installing them in my 67 Coronet. From what I remember, I had my adjustment screw backed all of the way out, and maybe had to unhook my upper ball joint-not sure.. My brother is doing the work and he had them in with roughly 3/4 if an inch threads left with no engine or trans in car. Anyone want to give me your experience with the big bar install and any clocking problems. I know it's B Body, but there are a lot more minds over here. Thanks
 
Yes. I used thair 1.03" t-bars in my 67 barracuda for a long time.
If I recall correctly they came with an offset of 30 degrees. In other words point of the one hex lines up to perpendicular of the flat of the other hex.

The install was done as normal. Back off the adjuster completely - although you probably don't need to with the hexes offset like that.
With a 1.14 bar, even though its longer than the a-body bar, my guess is the adjuster will have to be turned in about 1/2 way to get the proper ride hieght or a little lower.
With the 1.03 bars, IIRC had to crank the adjuster in about 3/4 of the way to get the ride height I wanted. Once you've got it close, the actually fine adjusment won't take too many turns one way or the other.
 
Thanks for the info. I couldn't remember, I thought we had to install them with the adjusters just starting into the little arm end. Thanks again!
 
I may have misremembered the hex offset.
Now I'm thinking the Mopar Perfomance ones were 30* offset and the California Suspension ones are no offset.
At least the ones I have. I only have had that one set.
But that would explain why there was slack with the control arm down, and why I had to crank them in so far to get the ride hieght.

See what yours is.
I should be by the garage tommorrow. I'll try to remember to look at them.
 
GMachineDartGT said:
Just for reference, none of the Mopar Performance bars over 1” had offsets.
Click to expand...
The two sets I have are both forged with 30* offsets, point to flats.
upload_2020-7-9_14-31-11.png

(The California Suspension bars were sold painted in white.)

upload_2020-7-9_14-39-1.png
 
That’s interesting as mine weren’t. Mopar also called out there wasn’t a need for offset with the stiffer bars. Learn something every day
 
The sets I bought were both bought at the same time - around 2002? when they were still pretty cheap. Both were painted like the one you see there and hadthe made in canada label on them. Could have been other versions. I generally agree that for 1.09 and up, no offset will work OK. I didn't really like that the 1.03 california suspension bars had no clocking ( flat to flat), although obviously they could be cranked in enough to work, because that's what I did.
 
You don't happen to remember how long they were in business do you? I purchased mine in 1986 or 87. I have a 1989 catalog but don't remember seeing any advertisements much after that.
 
lemondana said:
You don't happen to remember how long they were in business do you? I purchased mine in 1986 or 87. I have a 1989 catalog but don't remember seeing any advertisements much after that.
Click to expand...
I have a 1990 catalog and had one other, but it might have been an '89.
 
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