Torsion bar removal

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mcnoople said:
Nothing to be afraid of as long as the arm has a floor jack supporting it. When you lower the jack the arm will swing down through its travel. This is nowhere near as dangerous as the same job on a coil front spring car(GM) where the only thing holding the spring in place is the arms and the springs can shoot out. On a torsion bar mopar you just have to be careful that the arm doesn't swing down and hit you or the floor. But you must unbolt the front shock on one end since it is a suspension travel stop and you don't want to overextend the shock .
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Even though off topic... AMEN ! If the coil springs are removed from a 'vette without first installing the hooks to hold the arc in the spring , one might never get the spring back in it socket properly. Those little hooks are worth their weight in gold.
 
mcnoople said:
Nothing to be afraid of as long as the arm has a floor jack supporting it. When you lower the jack the arm will swing down through its travel. This is nowhere near as dangerous as the same job on a coil front spring car(GM) where the only thing holding the spring in place is the arms and the springs can shoot out. On a torsion bar mopar you just have to be careful that the arm doesn't swing down and hit you or the floor. But you must unbolt the front shock on one end since it is a suspension travel stop and you don't want to overextend the shock .
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When I work that way, I back off the lower ball joint nut, and then put it on three threads/turns, then support the lower control arm with a floor jack before pickle forking the ball joint loose, then after it "pops" then remove the nut and lower the floor jack.
 
RedFish said:
Even though off topic... AMEN ! If the coil springs are removed from a 'vette without first installing the hooks to hold the arc in the spring , one might never get the spring back in it socket properly. Those little hooks are worth their weight in gold.
Click to expand...



I used to be a "rack" mechanic at Sears when I was in college. It would take us "regular guys" about 45 minutes to change a front coil spring on a full size GM car with getting a hand from another guy. We had one guy in the shop, John Young, who was an awesome mechanic. He figured out how to do them by himself without any help and could change both front coil springs in 45 minutes.


After I would rebuild my suspensions on my Barracudas, I would have him align the front ends. I would have all new components with anti sieze grease so everything moved easy. He liked doing them and told me that my cars were so easy to align and he could use his hands to adjust instead of needing a wrench. He could get it all adjusted in 20 minutes. He was good at adjusting the cam bolts for the upper control arms and did great alignments. They didn't pay him what he was worth, so he eventually left. Boy, would I like to find him to do my alignments again...
 
I've never pickle forked these lower ball joints without totally destroying their grease boots. That's part of my reason for suggesting different methods to the madness depending on what parts are to be replaced.
 
For breaking the lower ball joint (or tie rod ends, etc) loose I use two large hammers. Loosen the nut four or five turns. Place one hammer against the side of the part the ball joint stud goes in, give the other side a very good rap with the other hammer. This distorts the metal, popping the stud out. There is no damage to the parts, as the stud won't let the hammers deform the metal enough to hurt the part.
 
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