Fratzog
Old Man with a Hat
Thanks for posting all the pics. This thread will be a very valuable ongoing reference for many members here.
New Member, 1967 Imperial
- Thread starter bajajoaquin
- Start date
Imperialcruiser
New Member
Nice car, I'll bet you get plenty of approving looks as you cruise about.
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Nice work and great pics, thanks for posting them.
bajajoaquin
Senior Member
Thanks guys. These boards can be a bit intimidating to those of us who don't know our butts from a hole in the ground. I find the process tough because there are so many things that are left out of instructions. "Installation is the reverse of removal" is probably the most frightening sentence in a repair manual. So I read the manual, ask questions, read the manual again, and eventually get out the wrenches.
Today's tasks were to find and install new sway bar links, install the fan clutch with stock fan, and get the ride height set to factory specs.
Yesterday I was a bit peeved that the sway bar links didn't fit. I was avoiding getting in the car and going over to the auto parts store to get new ones, so I decided to assemble the parts I had, just to kill time. Once I did that, I realized that they were the right parts after all:
That doesn't mean the old one wanted to come out, though. Even with penetrating oil over night, one of the nuts didn't want to come off. I tried double-nutting the top, but I still couldn't get enough torque on it.
I ended up just getting a hack saw and cutting it off.
I could probably use some new bushings for the bar, but I figure that will all get done soon enough when I do the whole front end.
Once cut off, the other pieces went in place just fine. One small issue was that I didn't know how tight to make them. It didn't occur to me until just now (like, literally as I'm typing this) that the FSM might have had some direction on the matter. So I made them pretty tight, and tried to make them even so I wasn't introducing any static load to one side or the other.
Oooh. Shiny.
My nephew Jack helped.
As I was crawling out from under the car, I looked up under the bumper, and saw some plastic part. I fished it out, and found a "spare" rotor. I wonder how long that's been flopping around up there.
No pictures of the fan replacement, but there wasn't much to it. The installation note I have for it is that it will go in with the clutch attached to the fan if you remove the top radiator hose. The stock fan appears to be smaller in diameter than the flex fan it replaced. I am holding out some small hope that I'll find it doesn't rub on the fan shroud any more, and maybe I don't have to replace motor mounts yet after all!
After that was done, I set the ride height to factory specs, using the steps laid out in the manual. For those who haven't read the back and forth in other threads, the manual says to bounce the car up and down several times to settle the suspension, then measure it. Make any adjustments and re-bounce and re-measure. Lots of guys say to lift the car, adjust, drive to settle, then measure. I get it: it seems like that should be the best way, but it is also really time consuming. So I was happy to find out that the factory specification showed a short cut.
The procedure is to measure the height of the bottom of the torsion bar sleeve, and the bottom of the lower ball joint. Subtract the second from the first, and you should have 1-3/4 inches plus or minus 1/8. Note that those are the numbers and measuring points for an Imperial. Other C-bodies have different measuring points and may have a different measurement. I don't remember.
Anyway, I got myself into the ballpark by counting the number of turns it took to back off the driver's side when I lifted the car up. (The passenger side was too low, so I wasn't going to try to return it to previous.) On my car, that was 36 full turns of the screw. When I put the car back down and cranked on 36 each side, I found that I was within 1/8 inch of level and only a half inch too low. I arbitrarily decided on 10 "whacks" of the ratchet, which was about a third of a turn each, and then measured again. I was spot on to measurement with the driver's side, and just under 1/8 too high on the passenger. Within tolerance. Good enough.
I can't really tell if the pull to the left is any better, because I only drove around my little beach town a few blocks home. I never really got above 25 mph. I also didn't notice much (any?) difference with the sway bar link fixed. But I do think the proper fan is quieter than the flex fan, even at these speeds.
The car really rides high though! I parked it in the same spot where I took the picture when I got new white walls, so i'll try to remember to take a pic of it there for comparison tomorrow.
Holy cow! It just dawned on me that I also didn't hear any clanking in the front end driving down the road. The whole point of this exercise was to get rid of that noise by fixing the isolators.
Heh. Heh. Glad it worked.
Sorry I'm so long-winded. Thanks for reading.
Today's tasks were to find and install new sway bar links, install the fan clutch with stock fan, and get the ride height set to factory specs.
Yesterday I was a bit peeved that the sway bar links didn't fit. I was avoiding getting in the car and going over to the auto parts store to get new ones, so I decided to assemble the parts I had, just to kill time. Once I did that, I realized that they were the right parts after all:
That doesn't mean the old one wanted to come out, though. Even with penetrating oil over night, one of the nuts didn't want to come off. I tried double-nutting the top, but I still couldn't get enough torque on it.
I ended up just getting a hack saw and cutting it off.
I could probably use some new bushings for the bar, but I figure that will all get done soon enough when I do the whole front end.
Once cut off, the other pieces went in place just fine. One small issue was that I didn't know how tight to make them. It didn't occur to me until just now (like, literally as I'm typing this) that the FSM might have had some direction on the matter. So I made them pretty tight, and tried to make them even so I wasn't introducing any static load to one side or the other.
Oooh. Shiny.
My nephew Jack helped.
As I was crawling out from under the car, I looked up under the bumper, and saw some plastic part. I fished it out, and found a "spare" rotor. I wonder how long that's been flopping around up there.
No pictures of the fan replacement, but there wasn't much to it. The installation note I have for it is that it will go in with the clutch attached to the fan if you remove the top radiator hose. The stock fan appears to be smaller in diameter than the flex fan it replaced. I am holding out some small hope that I'll find it doesn't rub on the fan shroud any more, and maybe I don't have to replace motor mounts yet after all!
After that was done, I set the ride height to factory specs, using the steps laid out in the manual. For those who haven't read the back and forth in other threads, the manual says to bounce the car up and down several times to settle the suspension, then measure it. Make any adjustments and re-bounce and re-measure. Lots of guys say to lift the car, adjust, drive to settle, then measure. I get it: it seems like that should be the best way, but it is also really time consuming. So I was happy to find out that the factory specification showed a short cut.
The procedure is to measure the height of the bottom of the torsion bar sleeve, and the bottom of the lower ball joint. Subtract the second from the first, and you should have 1-3/4 inches plus or minus 1/8. Note that those are the numbers and measuring points for an Imperial. Other C-bodies have different measuring points and may have a different measurement. I don't remember.
Anyway, I got myself into the ballpark by counting the number of turns it took to back off the driver's side when I lifted the car up. (The passenger side was too low, so I wasn't going to try to return it to previous.) On my car, that was 36 full turns of the screw. When I put the car back down and cranked on 36 each side, I found that I was within 1/8 inch of level and only a half inch too low. I arbitrarily decided on 10 "whacks" of the ratchet, which was about a third of a turn each, and then measured again. I was spot on to measurement with the driver's side, and just under 1/8 too high on the passenger. Within tolerance. Good enough.
I can't really tell if the pull to the left is any better, because I only drove around my little beach town a few blocks home. I never really got above 25 mph. I also didn't notice much (any?) difference with the sway bar link fixed. But I do think the proper fan is quieter than the flex fan, even at these speeds.
The car really rides high though! I parked it in the same spot where I took the picture when I got new white walls, so i'll try to remember to take a pic of it there for comparison tomorrow.
Holy cow! It just dawned on me that I also didn't hear any clanking in the front end driving down the road. The whole point of this exercise was to get rid of that noise by fixing the isolators.
Heh. Heh. Glad it worked.
Sorry I'm so long-winded. Thanks for reading.
Great update Joaquin
I love the look of new, shiny parts. ;) well done!
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Nice work, I like the vintage Mopar rotor.
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
I think the factory spec on those Imps is a little high I finally talked my buddy into dropping his like a inch or so at fender looked and drove much nicer. Good job on all of that work, the clutch fan should net you some mileage.
bajajoaquin
Senior Member
I didn't realize it was vintage. I shouldn't have tossed it. I could have sold it for big bucks!
That's an interesting comment, for several reasons. First is that I'll keep it in mind as I get the chassis sorted. I still want to know what the proper rear height is, and I'll keep looking. I'd like to set it up to factory spec first, see how it looks and drives, and then look at how I want to change it. I'm not someone who needs to be factory, but I think it's a good place to start.
Second is that it's another chink in the armor of, "you must always follow every detail in the FSM blindly" mantra that can creep up from time to time.
I'm hoping you're right about the mpg with the fan, but I haven't had enough miles to tell. (Also, I'm not convinced my odometer is accurate: it turns over, but the tripmeter doesn't work; and until I get my gps out on the road....) One thing I can tell right away is that it is much quieter with the factory fan setup. I drove it to work this morning, about 15 miles mixed city, traffic and freeway, and I'm no longer thinking I have a worn rear end, or need to lower the cruising RPM.
It's also much quieter with the Isolator fixed. Not only is the clanging gone, but there seems to be a lot less cowl shake, and the whole car feels more solid. The only down side of fixing those two things is that I can hear my passenger rear window making noise, because it's badly out of adjustment. Fixing that just moved up the priority list.
Sway bar link made a huge difference, too. I expected it to corner flatter, and it does. I can now make a right turn on a city street and not have to slow down to nearly a stop before turning. One thing I didn't expect was the overall wallow to be reduced. The sway bar must damp enough of the coupled side to side motion to make the whole car feel more stable.
It still pulls pretty badly to the left, but I'm feeling like it's sorted enough to go get aligned and not be wasting my money. The front end is by no means new, but the dust boots all seem to be intact, so there's some hope creeping in that major front end work isn't immediately necessary.
Now that I think about it, another down side of the quieter ride is that I hear some pinging on the freeway, if I accelerate hard from 65 mph or so. I'm not too surprised, since I really don't know where the timing is. There doesn't seem to be an advance mark on my timing cover. Add that to the list, too.
But overall, the Bipolar Owner is on an upswing. If I'm not careful, I may end up with a simple ol' nice-driving car!
bajajoaquin
Senior Member
Okay, here's before, and here's today.
It's hard to tell because I changed perspective a little bit, but I'd guess I'm only slightly higher than I was before. Less than an inch. Maybe I just noticed because the right side was finally at the proper height. Judging by eye and comparing to publicity photos, it looks like the rear end is close, too.
Last edited:
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
I think it looks a little higher, the ride height if its within reason should not have affected the steering if all perfect but his definitely drove better/ less wander, the alignment was better at the lower height, meaning the car had bump steer issues, which is not surprising with all that rubber isolators on k member, stub frame.
Ironwolf
Senior Member
I think it looks higher than before. :headbang:
polara71
Old Man with a Hat
You can definitely see the difference ..........well done
polara71
Old Man with a Hat
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
polara71
Old Man with a Hat
Cant, I quoted it....... :bootyshake:
bajajoaquin
Senior Member
Regarding height and ride quality, it occurs to me that the issue isn't just steering geometry. I think the way the adjusters work is that they adjust spring preload, not ride height directly. That is, you crank on the lever attached to the spring, put more load on it, and since there is more load, the rate goes up, and the car sits higher. This is different from a strict ride height adjuster, which changes the relationship of the pivot in terms of the spring.
Spring preload is a very common adjustment on motorcycle suspensions, but not so much on cars. You can back off preload if you want it to sit lower, but the spring will be earlier in its travel, and softer. More preload brings the ride height higher, but further in its travel, and stiffer.
Why am I saying this? Because I noticed how much better it rode when I cranked up just one side, and it rides still better again now. I'm guessing that's because the factory setting is about more than just geometry, and the ride quality is designed to be within a certain range. Lower is softer and wallow-ier. Before adjusting the ride height, I thought I might want to move up to 1.06" bars (from 1" stock). Now I'm thinking 1" is about right, if it's adjusted properly.
If I was to lower it an inch, maybe then the way to go would be to run 1.06" bars, because they would have less preload on them, and ride closer to factory.
Thoughts?
Spring preload is a very common adjustment on motorcycle suspensions, but not so much on cars. You can back off preload if you want it to sit lower, but the spring will be earlier in its travel, and softer. More preload brings the ride height higher, but further in its travel, and stiffer.
Why am I saying this? Because I noticed how much better it rode when I cranked up just one side, and it rides still better again now. I'm guessing that's because the factory setting is about more than just geometry, and the ride quality is designed to be within a certain range. Lower is softer and wallow-ier. Before adjusting the ride height, I thought I might want to move up to 1.06" bars (from 1" stock). Now I'm thinking 1" is about right, if it's adjusted properly.
If I was to lower it an inch, maybe then the way to go would be to run 1.06" bars, because they would have less preload on them, and ride closer to factory.
Thoughts?
bajajoaquin
Senior Member
Just a small update, sorry no pics.
My wife's grandparents were in town from Washington State to go on a cruise. I picked them up at the port when they returned Sunday. Lots of appreciative looks and a few nice comments. It was sunny and warm (sorry about that), we had the windows down, and all the luggage fit in the trunk. I also picked them up later and drove them to dinner for my wife's sister's birthday. They really enjoyed rolling in the Imperial. My wife's grandmother especially loved it. She said several times how she felt like she was in a limo, and at one point said, "these seats are so comfortable, and big!"
My wife's grandparents were in town from Washington State to go on a cruise. I picked them up at the port when they returned Sunday. Lots of appreciative looks and a few nice comments. It was sunny and warm (sorry about that), we had the windows down, and all the luggage fit in the trunk. I also picked them up later and drove them to dinner for my wife's sister's birthday. They really enjoyed rolling in the Imperial. My wife's grandmother especially loved it. She said several times how she felt like she was in a limo, and at one point said, "these seats are so comfortable, and big!"
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