Torsion bar adjustment -- one side raises whole car???

[cld]

This may be a stupid question, but I was trying to correct a lean in the front of my Fury (about 1/2 inch lower on the driver's side, much lower when I'm in it, since I'm closer to 300 lbs than 200), and it raised the whole front.

What I did: I PB Blasted the driver's side torsion bolt, waited a few days, raised the car to take the tension off, cranked the one adjuster bolt about a half turn, and put the car back down. Bounced it a few times on each side to settle. Measured again. WTF! The whole front is an inch higher, and the side to side difference is still there!

Key info: A few weekends ago I replaced the front shocks with KYB Gasajusts. THey only have a few miles on them. Are they maybe over-eager to hold the front up with a minor torsion bar tweak? Do I just need to let the car settle for a while? Or try to crank down the passenger side a bit? Feeling pretty dumb right now.

Thanks for your help!

 

[67Monaco]

Take it for a drive and let it settle then recheck. The sway bar is going to affect the other side to a slight extent.

 

[440Sled]

Yep...drive her around a bit and she will settle. Be sure to take measurements from the floor to the top of the fender well to keep things level. I would have just lowered the other side. I'm kidding. No I'm not.

 

[saforwardlook]

One half turn on the adjuster will not do much of anything. It will normally take a few turns to make up 1/2". I agree, drive it and then recheck it. I doubt it would change much from where you started unless there is something going on with the shocks. I have heard not so good things about KYB shocks lately, but mostly in the premature leaking area when not even a year old.

 

[cld]

Folks, thanks for the insights. I bounced it around some more, went for a drive, remeasured. It turns out that the main issue is that I am a dumba$$. I had never messed with front suspension before and didn't know what the relationship would be between number of turns and height. Plus I did not realize how much variability there would be with new shocks. So I guess what happened is that I raised the car to adjust, the shocks extended, and because they haven't settled in yet, they carried the car an inch higher after I lowered the jack. And SAforwardlook was spot on, obviously fractional turns aren't doing much. The bolts finally eased up after a drive and some more PB Blaster, and they easily turn while the car is on the ground now. I've gone about two turns down on the passenger side and three turns up on the driver's side and it's getting closer. Thanks for the tips and for listening!

Will report anything happens with the KYBs... I hadn't heard anything about leaking and they were $130-140 for a full set at shockwarehouse.com, so I jumped right in.