torsion

ive got 195/50r15 tires on the fron of my 88 mazda B2200. if i crank the torsion bars down all the way will my tires wear badly, or even at all?

your tires shouldn't wear too bad at all. Mine were down all the way, and the tires look to have been wearing normal. The ride is a little rougher, thats all

any time you go up or down even a little bit your alignment will be off. the best thing is too figure out your drive height, and then get yourtruck aligned to that. if you have trosions, im assuming you still have the facotry bump stop mounts also.. cut those completely off the frame and geta set of good drop shocks. your truck will ride perfect, and never bottom out on that dumb bumpstop mount

camber doesnt ruin tires, improper toe does. The most important thing to do after you crank your torsions down is take a measurment with the tires pointing straight ahead from the center of the tread on the left to the center of the tread on the right, then repeat behind the tire and compare those two measurments. adjust your tie rods till they these two measurements close as you can get to even.

If you are worried about extreme negative camber though, you can move your balljoints from their mounting posiotion below the control arms to the top of the arms. Doing this to the lower balljoint will lower the truck almost an inch and not change camber, you will need to cut a hump from the top of the arm to let the balljoint sit flat and also trim under the arm to let the bolts go back in from the bottom side. Doing this to the upper balljoint changes the angle of the upper arm and gets rid of some of the camber.

If you are loosening the torsions, be careful that they dont hang below the frame because they WILL drag off or get yanked out and you will be screwed. The way to fix this is to loosen the adjuster all the way, (TRUCK ON JACK STANDS getting crushed by a truck is a stupid way to die) then make a reference mark on the torsion bar and the lower arm where the torsion bar slides into the lower arm. Then pull the torsion bars out of the lower arm and turn them so they are "looser" still, about 4 splines. Now when you put them back in, you will have to crank the adjusters up more to get the truck off the ground, this keeps your adjusters up high in the frame where they wont get yanked or drug off.

I wish I had some pictures, but I hope I got it clear enough for you. The important thing is YOU WILL SEE WHAT TO DO while you are doing it. For example, the lower balljoint wont sit flat on the lower arm till you cut/grind away the hump, and the bolts wont go back in till you make room for them. Its intuitive, just do it.
Like James said you will need to cut off ALL the bumpstop mounts and probably clearance the lower arm not to hit the frame.

when i cranked down my truck,the shortest shocks i could find were too tall. i would bottom out my shocks. it hit hard enough that my upper shock mounts started to rip. i suggest raising your upper shock location. that way you could run what ever shock you want. you might have to trim your control arm to clear your shock.

who says camber doesnt mess up tires your completly wrong if your tires is on a 45 why isnt your tire going to wear wrong like on the inside part of the tire is going to wear more because the other half isnt on the ground. canber doesnt ruin tires thats so funny

camber does wear but not as fast as toe. on my ram i guarntee the only other people with worse camber are in fords but it was my toe that kills my tires the fastest.

I cranked mine all the way down took out the stops my toe is fine but hella camber i wore some tires down to were they were showing belts.. I took about 6-8 months to really show it but yeah i will kill tires.. I wanna know how to correct this and still be low..

going to shim up the upper control arms a bit. and once you mess with the alignment the toe might actually be off a little you wont be able to feel it it wont pull o raythign just the tires will wear in the inside or outside

Originally posted by thatsmydawg



who says camber doesnt mess up tires your completly wrong if your tires is on a 45 why isnt your tire going to wear wrong like on the inside part of the tire is going to wear more because the other half isnt on the ground. canber doesnt ruin tires thats so funny

we arent talking 45 degrees of negative camber though.

Also, I have owned more than one lowered mazda truck and if you flip your upper and lower balljoints like I said, the camber wont be enough to ruin your tires.

Most of the people who think camber ruins tires drive import cars with no toe adjustment. Even a TINY bit of camber, coupled with a couple degrees of toe in or out, will ruin a tire inside 1000 miles. Compare that to my 88 535is which has had 5 degrees of negative camber all 10 years I have owned it and the tires wear evenly. 5 degrees is a LOT, you notice it from behind right away. 45 degrees of camber, you are right, it will wear the inside. But you wot get even 10% of that on a static dropped mazda.