Strut Rod bushing adjustment

I just looked at my front strut rod bushings and they seem to worn out.
Whats the procedure to replace and adjust them?
The car was just wheel aligned and all bushibgs were replaced but for some reason they must have missed these.

You just replace them, no adjustment unless you have aftermarket strut rods. You will need to slide the torsion bar out, and lower control arm back to change them.

When I put my car in gear, the front end does a little dance and car feels a little unstable during the 1st 100 feet during acceleration.
Is this strut rod related?

Thanks are there any advantages to the QA1 aftermarket ones?

That is hard to say, when you say they missed those bushings I assume you hired someone to install them.... if they missed the strut bushings I would be wonderimg if they did the lower comtrol arm bushings. As far as the advantage to adjustable lower struts, they are fantastic if you need them, a sharp alignment guy can really dial in your caster, and make it the same side to side, if your car is perfect now it will do nothing, most cars are not perfect. One other thing nice about them is you can cut your old struts out and install the adjustables without removing the t-bars, but check them lower bushings to be sure they have been changed, and are not failing. A set of adjustable struts, adjustable upper arms, some good shocks, koni, hotchkis, viking, bilstein, and a good alignment guy and you will not believe it is the same car.

You should have it re-aligned after you replace the bushings. The bushings position the lower control arms through the strut rods which pushes or pulls the lower ball joint which affects the camber/caster. It would seem reasonable that worn bushings would have the lower control arm/ball joint in a somewhat different position than new ones. Besides the fact that aftermarket bushings may be a bit different dimensionally than the originals were.

And then you have the fact that you have to totally unload the torsion bars in order to remover them and slide the lower control arms back. Once it is all back together, the ride height will probably be just a bit different which also affects the alignment.

I would certainly be having a conversation with whoever told you all the bushings had been replaced.

"A set of adjustable struts, adjustable upper arms, some good shocks, koni, hotchkis, viking, bilstein, and a good alignment guy and you will not believe it is the same car. "




Rather than buy new (expensive) adjustable strut rods and upper control arms, we just have about 1/4" or so cut out of the rear arm of the upper control arms. That, along with the offset upper bushings, has always provided plenty of adjustment for the alignment shop.

could you explain this please ?

Do you have to remove the torsion bars no matter if its stock replacement bushings or a new QA1 strut rod setup?

I have a local machine shop cut about 1/4" out of the rear arm of both of the upper control arms near the bushing and weld them back together. Then I change the bushings to the offset ones.

A Ford guy showed me that trick many, many years ago. Every Mopar I have owned the last 30+ years has gotten that change to the upper control arms and relays on the headlights.

thanks dave. i understand now.

Yup, widening the front or narrowing the rear of the A moves the UBJ rearward, increasing caster.
Jack Arnew was doing that decades ago; he did the front end on my drag car (ex-Hamburger), widened the front leg.
Car goes straight as a string @ 130 all by itself.
But it does self-center from a turn with a vengeance.

I cut the ends off my strut rods. Put the ends in a lathe and turned them down so the ends pressed into 3/4"×.090" wall moly tube. Made the length 1/4" shorter and welded it all up.
Doug

Why not just turn down the end as it is?
Seems cutting, then adding back, then turning down is unnecessary?

using the factory threaded ends only, then using moly tubing for the center [solid factory part], makes for a lighter part.
a very common race car construction technique.