Ride height

Hi all:
I read the article about adjusting the rear torsion bar however it does not address the issues that two techs told me.
1. Don't do the job yourself and don't have it done by anyone who has not done a lot of them.
2. There is a lot of spring tension which makes the job trying and potentially hazardous.

I consider myself a decent shade tree mechanic however I do not want to get hurt or have the car towed to a shop after I have to give up. : - ( very emabarrassing.!!

My problem is the driver's side rear is .5 in lower than the right which causes the car to pull dramatically that according to the best alignment and frame straightening shop in town.
BTW, the local VW shop which will on occasion work on this "orphan" will not do that sort of job. The only guy who will is a POrsche guy and and when he did it on my 911 it was $300 ---OVER THREE HOURS LABOR. That would spell six for me.

I await your sage advice.

ralph- dont give up. You've managaed to be a spline off. To do the job right the first timeyou should buy a cheap angle finder. All it is is a protractor with a level on it and you make sure both spring plates are at the same angle. Also dont measure off of the body when determining ride hieght. Try and measure off of the suspension and pan as they shouldbe straight.

Ralph:

go to the "knowlege" section of this site, find article 214 and read it through. Setting your rear height isn't as hard (or dangerous) as it looks

Gordon
The "Speedstah Guy" from Port Royal

Good to see you back on-line Gordon. How did the move go?

I was thinking about this project and it occurs to me it is all about knowledge and principle. It's not like I can't afford to have it done. I just think I ought to be able to do it and if I am ever going to have any confidence about my abilities it just seems this is aboiut the most simple car one could work on.
I iwll read teh article and thanks for responding. The query went unresponded to for a while and I was thinking it scares most people off..

Ralph

I have read article 214 and that is all fine about the math in determining how the splines translate into height, but where is the part about
" jack up A.
Loosen B,
Clamp C
Turn nut D etc.
FIre up the torch and so forth.

I have the Bentely "official" shop manual and it is of little help on Pg.81. Seems like I should go to a wrecking yard and practice on something I can't hurt. WHen the local VW shop won't do the job it tends to put a little fear into the unititiated. And once I have put all that effort out I may just as well have it done. But it would be nice to know how to do it in case I get the wild idea to "slam it" as the VW guys say.
FOr those of you who folloed my thread on exhaust, Santa arrrived with two bright and shiny (maybe as bright as Rudoph's nose) 4 inch round Maganaflow mufflers. They are sitting under teh tree. I feel like I am 9 yrs again. They shure R purdy.
Eddie, I finally went with your style.

Oh, Geez.....here goes (the Reader's Digest Version):

- Jack up rear of car and place on Jack Stands.
- Remove Rear wheels.
- Use floor jack under the lower shock absorber to just hold it in place
- Scribe (scratch) a short vertical line between the spring plates and the trailing arm tab such that you can line it back up later in exactly the same spot (front to back)
- Remove the three bolts holding the spring plates to the trailing arm.
- jack the trailing arm up out of the way (above the spring plates)
- Move the jack to under the lower rear corner of the spring plates
- jack up the spring plates until it clears the lower casting stop (where it normall rests)
- Remove the four bolts holding the torsion bar retainer to the frame
- Pry the torsion bar retainer away from the frame and remove
- Place a beefy pry bar between the inside spring plate and the casting stop and pry outward such that the spring plate wil clear the stop when lowered
- Slowly lower the jack while prying the spring plate outward until it clears the stop and lowers down to its' bottom (should be around 4 o'clock)
- Jiggle/pry the hell out of the torsion bar cover until it releases (they ALWAYS stick in place) and slide it out about 1/2 inch.

- Follow the directions in the knowlege section (also do a search on here for rear end height for more info) to get your height set where you want it AND balanced left-to-right.

To replace (assuming that the torsion bar AND cover have been set where you want them:
- Grease the big rubber donut before re-assembly
- Replace the torsion bar cover as far in as possible.
- Replace the cover retainer and insert all four bolts just a little more than finger tight.
- jack the spring plates up until they clear the casting stop
- Tighten all four torsion bar cover retainer bolts
- Let down the spring plate onto the stop.
- Position the trailing arm tab between the spring plates
- Re-insert the three bolts, line up the plates and tab and tighten the three bolts

Move to the other side and repeat

Eventually, replace your wheels, let the whole thing down and see if you've arrived at the height and left-to-right balance that you want. don't forget to roll it back and forth and bounce the rear end up and down a few times to make it settle before making measurements.

Go have a beer.

gn

Stan:

Move went well - LOTS of Holiday traffic last weekend, starting heavy in New Jersey and continued right down into South Carolina on I-95 - unbelievable! Been out about every day with the Speedster and already heard about two others around here - one Burgundy and that Blue one I saw last August, but haven't seen either yet. Top held on GREAT and looks super, too, although I still need to do some cutting and fitting later on to make it useable from the inside. Precious few minutes to get on here, as we're trying to organize the place, find furniture and stuff (LOTS of Wal-Mart and Lowe's runs) and fix lots of little things (like sewer clogs (and the plummer is building a Lambo replica in his garage) and weird hot air heat dispersion) and get the phones installed and working, DSL up and running (it's still limping) and so forth. All should be stable by Christmas.

Tomorrow night we head to the Christmas Lighted Boat Parade in downtown Beaufort - should be really nice!

gn

Oh yeah.......lower 40's at night, and 65 - 73 during the day - life is good!

The $35 is worth its weight in gold . I will give it a shot, taking pictures as I go and then wil post for the next person who wants this challenge.
Thanks a lot.

Move is a four letter word! :)

BD

ralf did you get it figured out?

I got the flu so projects got put on hold.

Just got putting the wheels back on my project tonight and lowering it back down to the ground.

Looking at the photo it's clear I need to adjust something, but what? Is it the nose going up or the rear going down that needs to happen?

To my mind the rear tyre looks about right in the wheel well (maybe a little high). Which would mean that the front is too low.

Certainly adjusting the front will be a lot easier than doing the spring plate shuffle, but it's got to look right. I have read in a couple of books that the 'correct' stance is somewhat 'arse-down', meaning that the car looks like it is under hard acceleration standing still.

Comments? What is the height of other people's rocker panel to the floor at front and rear?

Jim.

dont worry about the ride height until you have all the weight in the car. Atleast the engine and trans.

The engine and transmission ARE already in - that's my issue.

Jim.

Jim,

The ride height looks to be almost two inches too high in the front, perfect in the rear. You also have that thing happening with the chassis being a smidge too short for the body. That might be effecting the "look" of the car. The wheels aren't centered in the wells.

First drop the nose, THEN address the need for spacers in the front if it still looks wrong.

IMHO

TC

Jim:

You've also got a difference between the top of the wheel well arches front to back. The rear arch is lower (like on IM's) which will automatically give it that "Arse down" look.

You might try measuring along the rocker panel to the floor and see how it sets that way - that's probably going to be the easiest place to find a "level" reference. TC's right, though, it does look a bit high in the front, and that tends to be the easier end to move up and down.

Remember, though, that it's the REAR that makes it level left-to-right!

gn

Hey Gord; judging from your experience, how many notches would JJR need to adjust in his car to get the right stance? I'm enclosing a picture of both our cars. Mine is the ivory one and it also looks like it might need a little bit of lowering too. Thanks for your input!

TC and Gordon,

Thanks for the replies. However, I am a bit confused by your recommendation. You both think that the front is too low - right?

If I lower the front end (on the left hand side in the photo) the car would end up even more tilted toward the front and further away from the level.

I will measure the rocker panel height from the ground tonight at the front and rear edges. I thought that the rocker panel at least should be almost parallel to the floor. At the moment mine is tilted up towards the rear wheels.

I think that the angle I took the photo at is contributing to the appearance that the front wheels are not centred in the arch. I'll take another look at that tonight as well.

Cheers,

Jim.

Jim:

I've included, below, my "before and after" shots when I lowered mine per the instructions on the forum (#214 in Knowlege, I think, but do a search on here, because there's more info than that). Remember that I have "circle arch" wheel wells, and yours are more flattened at the top of the rear arch, so there'll be a difference vis a vis the wheel.

I think both TC and I think the front is too high, which would make the rear too high as well, once you get things evened out - I suspect you'll end up lowering BOTH ends before you're done. My suggestion would be to get the front down where it looks good agains the tire line, and then lower the rear to even it off, either by measuring the rockers to the floor or simply by "eye" so it looks good to you.

BTW: My rockers are about 3/8" - 1/2" lower in the front right now, and I like the look (for me).

good luck, gn

Ricardo:

Can't tell from this distance, but measure from a reference point (the steel wheel rim) to the well arch and decide how much you want to change it (either up or down) and then read my article in the "knowlege" section and decide how many inside and outside splines to jump and I'm sure you'll be fine. Just make sure the back end is level - left-to-right - before you start. If it is not, then compensate accordingly and you'll probably be OK.

Gordon

OK. So I have lowered the front wheel so that the top of the wheel is pretty much level with top of the tyre.

It looks like I am going to be doing some significant dropping of the rear as at the moment the thing looks more like a funny car dragster than a speedster!

My only concern was with the suspension adjusters pretty much bottomed out there did not seem to be much suspension 'give' in the front at this new height.

Jim.

I would try going another 3/4" lower on the front, then make the rear lower to align with the front to "look" right.

What's becoming close in tolerance on the front at this height?

gn

Gordon,
Not sure what you mean by close in tolerance. Do you mean where is the wheel closest to the body?
Jim.

Jim the more you lower the front down the less suspension travel is available to soak up bumps on the road. The ball joints limit the range of motion of the suspension to about 4

Jim:

I looked at your pics and it looks like you're building a CMC - not sure, but it looks close.

On my CMC, I have 16" rims, with 205X55's on the front, and 225X55's on the rear (I can measure their diameter, if you wish).

The wheel well tops are BOTH 1-1/4" lower than the top of the tread, and BOTH wheel well arch tops are exactly 23 3/4" from the ground.

I have standard front spindles (they are not "drop" spindles) and still have 3-3/8" of up travel on the trailing arms (til I bottom out the shock) and over 6" of down travel. I have the battery, a full-size spare, a jack, the gas tank and maybe another 5 pounds of spare stuff under the hood. I would need a friggin' elephant out on there to get much overall down movement of the car, and hitting a bump hard enough to move a single wheel up enough to bottom the shock would jar my dentures right out! It rides nicely, does not bump steer any more than my old '57 beetle did, and now that I finally dropped the rear end to match the front, it looks cool, too.

Hope this helps........let me know if I can get you more measurements

gn

Gord; thanks for your reply; we certainly printed out both of your articles in the knowledge section and have read them front to back and are using them as our guide for this procedure. We thought that maybe it would look correct if the wheel arch was lined up with the top edge of the rim. We were figuring close to 2" in JJR's car. He was also concerned about the camber in his IRS car after this procedure.

Gordon and Bruce,

Thanks for the replies and advice.

You are correct I am building a CMC. I just checked and I have 16" rims with 185/65 tyres.

According to the tyre calculator on miata.net this means you have 0.4" more sidewall height than I do, which may explain some of the difference in height.

The front is back up on jack stands right now as I am relocating the front bumper downwards.

I think I am maybe being premature and it will probably be better to finish some other things before I start worrying about ride heights.

Knowing me as my wife does, I will only end up doing it twice before I am satisfied with the result!

I just read that back to myself and realised that could mean a whole lot more than I meant it to! Oh well, two more days and then it's two whole weeks off! That's another thing - where were the Americans when it came to giving out vacation days? Two weeks a year?! I had 5 weeks the first day of my first job in England! In Germany I would have had 6 and maybe even up to 8 weeks.

Bah Humbug!

Yeah, and the French Unions are bitchin about losing their 35 hour work week to go to 38 while Volkswagen is telling their workers that they need to take pay cuts AND work longer hours or their jobs go to other countries - life is tough.

When I was working, I had people working for me in the USA, as well as Ireland and Tokyo. The Irish folks were working a regular 50 hour week (just a little less than me in the 'states at 55 hrs per week) whilst my Japanese collegues were putting in close to 70 hrs per week, same as most of the high tech countries in Asia. I wanted to put an office just outside Paris or Brussels, but would have had to put on extra people just to cover "normal" business hours spanning a 5 hour time zone difference (Ireland to the Middle East), and then I would still have to deal with people not there due to "holidays" and other times off. Just wasn't worth it.......I wonder where other jobs are exporting to from those countries?

Ricardo: Putting the top of the wheel well arch even with the top of the RIM would make that a true weed beater - might be way too low and perilously close to bottoming out all the time. You might want to re-think your "look" versus practicality.

gn

Got you Gord! Thanks...we'll have to think more about how to do this.......

IM owners URGENT. I had a local pro take my rear susp. apart and he called me into the shop and pointed to my dangling suspension. "I can't adjust it. I don't know what to do". Fearing broken torsion bar I followed the tube inwards to the transaxle where it stopped. I should have figured Henry or his dad always wanting to improve on the original had created a way to adjust the ride height in ten minutes without UNBOLTING ANYTHING. Merely relieve the stress on the rear wheels, UNDO LOCK NUT (figure one It's the bolt just to the right of the trailing arm) and turn in/out bolt that determines ride height. We measured the distance side to side to the garage floor until ride height was even, and then an extra half inch to account for my 200 pounds.
I have included the second picture for those of you who want to see what it looks like if you have to dissassemble things.

Here are the photos. I will post more in my photo album---soon, but this should give you an idea of how it's done and while it is a piece of cake on an IM it is not terribly hard on others.