Suspension thread

[Irving]

Everything is back together now, BUT, I must not have indexed the torsion bars correctly because I am out of adjustment room and the front end is sitting several inches lower than when I started. I'm the bars just need to be re-indexed, but I'm not really sure how to go about it. Getting the bars out of, and back into place was such a colossal pain in the ass that I don't even want to look at them at the moment. I'm going to do a little more reading on the Isuzu site and see if I can get myself back on track.

Let's catch up from where we left off. When doing the CV axle on the passenger side, I decided to not remove the brake disc and the hub, and while that worked out okay in the end, all the extra weight swinging around on the knuckle made it more difficult to work than it would have been to just remove a few more bolts.

After getting my floor covered in grease doing the last CV axle, I had this brilliant idea to make a wash bin of sorts with a rack inside to keep all the parts up where I could keep track of them. In addition, I thought I'd use warm soapy water this time as was called for by the instructions accompanying the new boots. This was fine until I dunked the non-serviceable end of the axle into the water, then realized that there was no way I was going to be able to remove all the grease that way, let alone the water. So I just took the whole axle to the car wash and sprayed it out the best I could. I then brought it home and blew everything out with compressed air the best I could. Then I sprayed some brake cleaner in there anyway, to chase the water out. Then blew everything out with compressed air again until I was satisfied. I'll have to see if that axle fails more quickly than the other side, but this vehicle is driven so infrequently that I doubt I'll notice.


While trying to break the passenger side upper ball joint loose, it just seemed like the pickle fork wasn't quite wide enough. I slid a wrench in under the fork and was able to pop it off very quickly after that. I had been pounding on the thing for 30 minutes prior, so I don't know if I had just vibrated it loose by that point anyway, or if the wrench was a brilliant idea.


The flipped ball joint didn't want to fit on the underside of the passenger side upper control arm, so it had a talk with the grinder until it changed its mind.


After I finished up with the passenger side knuckle, it was time to start on the torsion bars. Of all the instructions and How-To threads I've read on this, none of them mention removing the center cross member to allow more room to work. They all just say to ease the bar out from under the truck, and OH! be careful not to scratch it. This was impossible during both removal, and install, but I didn't care during removal since those bars are going in the trash anyway. As you saw in the picture above, I was having some difficultly knocking the keys loose from the rear of the bars. I actually got one off using the pictured drift punch, some heat (map gas), and a mini-sledge. The passenger side bars wasn't moving though, and that's the one that broke my 10lb dumbbell. I ended up calling the Napa parts on Havana (the one with the machine shop) and they broke it loose for me for $20ish. I asked them if it was easy and they said it wasn't, even on their press. Pictured below is one of the many failed attempts at removing the key.


Here is the new bar next to the old bar. They look about the same, but the new bar is advertised as 30% stiffer, and the new definitely weighs more. Torsion bars are cheap for all other Isuzus and prohibitively expensive for my model. Figures.


New bar installed on driver side.


It's only three bolts. Two on the upper control arm up front.


And one large adjustment bolt (27mm) in the rear. Easy right?


That's everything so far. I'll try to post up more photos of the front swaybar quick detach when I get around to it. If anyone has any suggestions for re-indexing the torsion bars, I'm all ears. I'm afraid to even drive it anywhere as it sits now.

[Irving]

After some research, it looks like I should have indexed the keys in such a way that they were angled up (45 degrees?) from the cross member in such a way as to just barely be able to get the bolt back through. I just laid the key all the way in the bottom of the saddle on each side. I bet that is the problem. Hopefully I can get it corrected tomorrow.

[brutal]

Also make sure you didn't switch up the L/R bars. I believe they are specific to each side.

[Irving]

They are, and I'm pretty confident I got that part correct. Thank you though.

[Irving]

Finally done. Now I have the same ground clearance as a Subaru Forester or F-150. Yay!

I'll post up a bunch of pictures all around.

View from other side is better, but can't see due to sun glare.


Having no rear sway bar feels pretty incredible going over bumps and the body stays much more flat. This should really approve off road capability for the Amigo.


You can really see how much flatter a solid axle allows the body to stay compared to IFS (Independent Front Suspension).


VS.

[Irving]

Wheels tuck nicely. Isuzu's are handicapped by being low from factory and not having a lot of space to fit bigger tires without rubbing. I had to trim a lot just to fit these tires that are only about an 1" larger in diameter than factory. This will never be a Jeep (not unless I SAS'd the front anyway), but it'll do for mild trail fun.



As I mentioned earlier, down travel on the driver side is now limited to when the upper trailing arm contacts the fuel tank. Darlington Off-road apparently makes a bent link. Calmini makes bent links, but only sells you both sides, and you only need driver side. In this photo, there is about another inch before the bar makes contact.


You can see that the front doesn't tuck as willingly as the rear.




I took pictures of what I did wrong with the torsion bars, but I've got to run now so I'll post them later. As it sits, the front sway bars are disconnected, and will remain that way until I can make extensions because the bar rubs on one front shock or the other.

[fportmen45]

With that rig, do you need a front sway bar?

[Irving]

I could probably get away with taking it off, but I don't know how well it'd handle on the highway, and I definitely want it to be manageable for my wife. She had a steep learning curve driving it in the snow with the limited slip in the rear. It doesn't have a ton of horsepower, but it will readily throw the ass end around under throttle, even in the rain.

[fportmen45]

I could probably get away with taking it off, but I don't know how well it'd handle on the highway, and I definitely want it to be manageable for my wife. She had a steep learning curve driving it in the snow with the limited slip in the rear. It doesn't have a ton of horsepower, but it will readily throw the ass end around under throttle, even in the rain.

Makes sense.

[Irving]

It looks longer than a Jeep, but the wheel base is almost identical.

Here it is next to a Wrangler I parked next to today.


Even lifted it still looks about the same size as the Jeep.