jturbo

Anyone know offhand, how many hours Porsche estimates it will take to reindex the rear 951 torsion bars?

turbite

a lot

honestly, if you're going to bother, I'd consider just removing them and putting in some coilovers.

NZ951

I will be doing this on Friday when the koni adjustables go in. I dont know how long Porsche suggests, but I will be able to tell you how long it takes me.

Fen

I wouldn't advocate removing them personally but when I reindexed mine we dropped the rear beam and used the opportunity to replace all the brake and fuel lines above it. We also found that all 4 rear beam mounts had come apart (the rubber no longer bonded to the bracket). This is on a 1990 car that is in very good condition with no corrosion in the common places other UK cars often show it. Lastly we fitted Weltmeister poly-graphite bushes while it was off.

That work probably took 12 hours or so at a guess and that was a trained Porsche tech with me assisting for 4 hours.

Sami951

Fen, any squeaks / other nasty noises with those bushings? Few guys over here run them and their cars seem rather noisy ... I'm thinking of doing some suspension work over the winter and I'm not entirely sure what I should do with the bushings.

NZ951

I wonder how low you need to go in the rear, you can go pretty low before reindexing... I am at the limit now before I need to reindex and iits pretty low...

Fen

Sami - I haven't run it yet, we're having some difficulties making a brand new 2005 model EMS talk to an early 80's engine (triggers mainly). Hopefully tomorrow it will fire.

Fen

I had mine as low as it would go without reindexing and it wasn't quite enough for me. I then bought coilvers so it was only going to get higher. We reindexed to this:


and then raised it on the spring plates and fitted the coilovers to this:


I'll let it settle for a few miles and see what I think as it's a hair high just now I think.

jerome951

It takes a while to do this, even if you get it right the first time. I removed my bars and replaced with thin ones w/ minimal spring rate and that took at least a day.

I have a spreadsheet (found somewhere, maybe Paragon's tech session website) that allows you to calculate the amount of re-index to hopefully get it right the first time. PM me with your e-mail address and I can send it to you.

Chipster

I spent a total of about two full days re-indexing my t-bars - all by my-average home mechanic-self. The hardest part was probably removing the 19 year old rubber bushings. They were "fused" to the metal.

If you're careful and take good measurements, you might only have to do it once. If you're off (like I was) you have to drop the whole torsion tube assembly and re-set everything. This is not a technically difficult job - just a lot of labor - especially if you're doing it by yourself. I'll second Jerome - download the directions. I also recommend getting an experienced friend to help - and have him bring an extra floor jack. With some help - and the right tools - you can probably do it in a (long) day.

Chip

Alpine951

I did it over the winter in my garage. I put in stiffer bars. I didn't drop the whole assembly. I did one side at a time per the Chuck Moreland instruction threads here on Rennlist. I can never figure out how to post a link to a thread , otherwise i would. I used the Delrin bushings on the spring plates. I greased them. The job did take some time, but like somethings once you do it the first time it easier.

M758

Stay with the T-bars.

So many folks are so worried about the t-bars it is really sad.

here is my procedure to index the bars.

http://members.rennlist.com/m758/tbarreindex.htm

Skip Wolfe

The spreadsheet that is in M758's procedure is definitely the wy to go. I used it and got the indexing correct the first time. As everyone else has said, the procedure is not technically difficult, just tedious.

I used the Welmeister bushing the first time but if I had to do it over I would use the Elephants bearings - I was disappointed by the fit of the Welmeister units.
http://www.elephantracing.com/suspen...44bushings.htm

Also here are the links to the write-ups by Chuck Moreland of Elephant Racing on how to do them by dropping one end at a time. I drop the whole thing so I'm not sure how well this works, but it looks like it might be easier.
https://rennlist.com/forums/924-931-944-951-968-forum/147541-how-to-spring-plate-bushing-replacement-part-1-a.html
https://rennlist.com/forums/924-931-944-951-968-forum/147665-how-to-spring-plate-bushing-replacement-part-2-a.html
https://rennlist.com/forums/924-931-944-951-968-forum/148255-how-to-spring-plate-bushing-replacement-part-3-a.html

Also as someone said earlier getting the rubber bushing off is one of the hardest things. The trick I found worked was to use a razor knife to quarter it, and the use a wood chisel to chisel the quartered pieces off. I then used the razor knife to get the remaining pieces off by skinning them like you would skin an apple or carve a price of wood, and followed the whole thing up by a wire wheel on a drill. The wire wheel is messy so the more material you get off with the knife, the better off you will be.

Good luck.

Fen

Oooh I hate it when I see something that looks better that what I've just bought... Those Elephant bushings do look good.

That said I didn't notice anything I wasn't happy with on the Weltmeister ones, and even if I do have to replace them again then stripping the rubber ones off is an absolutely horrendous job that thankfully won't have to be repeated. I'm not overly worried by a bit of squeaking if they do that.

Kool

When replacing torsion bars is it a given to have to replace the bushings?