[T3] Front end musings

["Park, Keith J (CRD)" <parkkj@exc01crdge.crd.ge.com>]

I was reading the NONA newsletter and ran across the front end article...

OK OK I wont get into the lowering debate but a few observations and suggestions and as I get time Im
going to do an article on this.

First off.. he didnt' drop the Notch in the article much, and he really shouldn't have problems but
most people dont really understand the cons of doing it and the Notch and Fastback people are
generally unaware of a particular advantage they have.

First off.. taking your front end to a shop,  theres nothing majic about them but if the mechanic
isn't familiar with the T3 front end and doesn't take the time to read and follow the Bentley they
can really mess things up fast. They'll just use the comment "we cant get that part".  SO.. choose
your mechanic wisely, I still have to get my alignments done for me and I have  a shop that allows me
to work with the mechanic and see what he's doing.  they charge 3 times the amount for a full
alignment but atleast its done right and I know exactly whats done  and where things are set.

     First off.. to make any type of fine adjustment or leveling you need to get both splines free,
inner and outer, and the inner can freeze up solid, especially on the rustier cars.  you remove the
anchor bolt and latch washer and replace with a hardened bolt, longer, and hit that with the hammer
and pound it out.  You can heat but the beam will then distort easily and you dont want to damage the
inner spline anchor in the beam, you can also catch the petrolium vapors in the beam of fire and that
ain't fun!
     DO NOT indescriminately heat the trailing arms and never with them installed in the beam, you
will fry the irreplacable seal around the needle bearings and catch the grease on fire.  You need to
remove the arms and bars first.  Even then, heating will weaken them and since the lower ones are the
first thing to bend anyway and not the greatest idea for the torsion bars eather. 
 IF you lower it will take the turns betterbut it will lose caster angle and stability at high speeds
and on rough roads.  People with Notches and Fasts
can have the best of both worlds  by not lowering and using the Squareback sway bar as its
significantly bigger and  will bolt right to the existing upper torsion arms.  My notch now corners
much better but is still stable at high speeds, the remaining down point is that the ride is a bit
bouncier as the suspension is stiffer in its  independant mode.  I also have the Squareback torsion
bars in the rear	which	stiffen things up, again NOT lowered, so the handeling is better but
some additional bouncyness is felt. 

 Stock caster is 4deg and most of our cars dont even have that with stock ride height so lowering
takes that down to 0 or even negative real fast.

Just some rambleings that will someday be put in order...


Keith
parkkj@crd.ge.com

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