REAR TIRES WEARING BAD 1963 BAHA

Thank You for the help...I need to know what direction I should move the tortion once unbolted.

The tires are wearing on the outsides. (Toe In)

Please Help If You Know.

Thank You;

I think Timo is refering to negative camber, not toe-in.

For buggies that are used off-road a lot it is common to set the suspension up high to give better ground clearance and more suspension movement for big bumps on the "road". This makes the rear wheels closer together at the bottom than at the top. 

This set-up is not so good for highway use as it reduces the cars stability, and, as you noticed, causes the tires (tyres) to wear on the outside edges.

For highway use, best is to try to have the wheels perpendicular to the road surface when the car is loaded as you typically use it.

Timo is asking about adjustments of the torsion bar to achieve the desired ride height. Best look this up in a book I reckon. Fred has posted on it several times a while back.

There is one hard part to resetting the spring plates. There is quite a lot of tension there when they are sitting on the stops, and they let go with a real bang. This can be dangerous if you have a hand or a leg in the wrong place.

If this is in a buggy, then after you have unbolted the axle (three bolts) you can bolt an extension onto the spring plate (made from steel plate or pipe or 2x6 or something) so that it extends out the rear of the car. You can use this as a leaver to lift the spring plates off the stops, and to lift them back after adjustment. This is much easier and safer than trying to use a jack, but it wont work so simply with a full bodied vehicle.

However... back to toe-in.  Toe-in is the extent to which the front of the wheels are closer together than the rear of the wheels on the same axle. It's related to steering. Poor adjustment of toe-in causes the tread patern to drag sideways and wear rapidly.  Because the swing axle set-up is semi-trailing, the toe-in changes as the wheel moves through it's range of suspension travel. You adjust this as Darby discussed above, but best to get your ride height sorted first as this will then be at best your "average toe in" as the wheel moves up and down in normal driving.

Cheers,  Brian

I think I agree with that. If you have adjusted them previously, then you will be familiar with some technique to get the torsion bars out and back in again OK.

What I have done in the past is ...

1. decide how much you want to lower the car, say 3inches.
2. set the car up on blocks on a flat surface (concrete garage floor)
3. remove wheels and remove axles from the springplates
4. loosen or remove the torsion bar end covers and release the spring plate from the sholder that limits its travel, so that the spring plate is drooping and loose, but still on the splines of the torsion bar.
5. measure how far the rear end of each torsion bar is from the floor. Should be the same both sides +/- 1/4 inch. If not the same, take an average.
6. Now release the torsion bars fully and play with the spline settings of the torsion bars untill you get the distance to the floor to be what you want, which should be the average original distance adjusted by (say) 2 inches.. if you want to lower the car 3 inches (this is very approximate and depends a fair bit on the type of wheels you are running). N.B. the number of splines is different at each end of the torsion bar, so to get the smallest possible change in setting you go forward one spline at one end, and back one spline at the other end. I seem to recall you get about 1/4 inch movement at the spring plate for each forward-backward movement on the splines.
7. button it up, put the car back on the ground and roll it forward and back a bit, and see if you got it right.
8. Do it all again with the benefit of your lessons learned the first time.

You may also need to agjust your wheel alignment again after doing this, and also your headlight level.

Brian

Thanks to darby for your input. Greatly Appreciated!

I began the task this afternoon and am documenting it on digicam.

Thank You Brian for your Logical direction. I have the rig in my garage and got the levels and measuring instruments out to aid in the quest for the perfect adjustment.

I was quite surprised to fined such a discrepancy in the torsion bar adjustment once measured but certainly see the deed with the two sets of tires I've kept these past few months.

I believe I will know right away with the first bump I hit if I am on the road to success and for sure in a month of driving.

I will monitor the results closely as well as document the whole thing for someone else that may experience the awful condition........

If you want a picture, email me and I will send some out.

Timo

I finished up Saturday and the first thing I noticed while driving was just how much smoother of a  ride it was. A total transformation!

I could even see the differance in the way the tires made surface contact with the road.

Regarding the Safety Aspect of releasing the tension on the springplates:

I put the Hydraulic floor jack just under the bottom of the plate (about 1/8" of clear space) and then pryed the spring plates out until they popped out onto the jack and then released the jack...It worked fantasctic!

The time it took for me to do the job including the other tasks was under six hours...I'm a rookie so no doubt you pros could do it in half the time.

(Funny thing is I spent more than 1/2 hour changing the driver side axle boot for one reason and another) (LOL)

Thank You For the help!

Timo