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If you've ever tried to take the torsion bars out of your muscle-era Mopar, especially if they've never been out before, you probably know how stubborn they can be. Granted, once in a while you can just pull them out with very little effort, but most of the time you won't get that lucky. Instead of hunting all over the place at parts stores for a tool to do this job, you can make your own from nothing more than scrap steel and a couple U-bolts in a matter of ½ hour or so.
The diagram below shows the approximate dimensions needed for this tool.
The nice thing about it is that it doesn't have to be exactly this size
to work. To make mine, I used 2 pieces of scrap ½" steel plate and
welded them together at a 90° angle. If you can find some heavy steel
angle iron at a scrap yard, this will also work. I then drilled 4 holes
in the longer plate for 2 U-bolts I got from the local hardware store. That's
about all there is to building one of these contraptions! I told ya it was
easy :)
Once you have this tool made, jack up the front of the car by the frame,
making sure to get all the weight off the front wheels. Loosen the adjuster
bolts (see diagram) until there is no more tension on them and you can
wiggle them in their holes in the lower control arms. Remove the clips in
the rear sockets of the torsion bar cross member and spray some good penetrating
oil into the rear socket. Clamp the tool you just made to the bar in a place
where you can get a good swing at it with a hammer. The direction of it doesn't
matter. Hit the vertical part of your tool with the hammer to drive the
bar toward the rear of the car. Don't be afraid to hit it. With any luck
you should start to see the bar slide rearward.
If, after a few good hits, you don't see the bar moving, you may need to take some more tension off the bars. You may think that just because the adjuster bolt is completely out of the lower control arm that all the tension is relieved. This may not be the case. If you look underneath the upper control arm, you will see a rubber bumper. Sometimes this bumper needs to be removed in order to get the lower control arm down far enough to free the torsion bar. Another factor could be the front shock absorbers. They may also limit the downward travel of the control arm. Remove either or both of these components as necessary. In some rare cases, the upper ball joint will need to be popped out of the spindle to gain enough travel to get the bars out.
I've tried to list any snags you might run into with this job. I hope this page will take torsion bar removal off some of your "dreaded jobs" list.
If it helps you out, please let me know.
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