The trouble with the FF Torsion bars...

M_Body_Coupe

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So after literally several years of corresponding back'n'forth with Matt@FirmFeel (as in circa 2015) my new torsions bars finally showed up back in May, 2023. Frank took over at FF, and they made a real push to get these out the door. Granted, it was a limitted run of about 10 sets, but having been on that list since the early days I got in on that run.

Well, so a year later now (since the time these arrived) and I started to go to work on these things. Having previously pulled the existing t-bars out of my coupe (while there was absolutely nothing wrong with them, they were just too soft for my use), and having reconditioned the parts I prepared to reassemble everything I was ready to toss these puppies right in!

Today that day came, and as I attempted to install the torsion bars in the car I ran into a road-block type of a problem. The end-bushings install was the first item on the list, and while one bar went on super easy (or as easy as expected) the other one would not budge past the point where the t-bar itself is flattened somewhat where the retaining bolt hole is machined.

I played with things for a while, started measuring and discovered that this bar actually expands out to 1.085-90" through that flattened portion, and that of course will never allow the end bushing housing to be mounted as that is only 1.060-65".

In comparison the bar that allowed me to install the bushing is only 1.050-55" at the tip and expands somewhat to about 1.060" at the flattened part, but still clears fine.

Alright...so now I have a problem: what can I do to address this?

I emailed Frank @FF, waiting to hear back. I am not exactly looking forward to fixing a problem that's a $1300 value (talking about the TOTAL cost to get these to my door) on my own. At the same time, I suspect they (FF) may not be sitting on multipe sets of these 1.25" t-bars, and if that's indeed the case I am literally stuck up the proverbial shit's creek!

So the question I have to all of you is the following:

1) fix the bar by attempting to sand down the oversize section to the diameter that's needed

OR

2) take the t-bar bushing ends and have the machine shop ream the ID to match the largest side of the t-bar OD

I do not like #2 because that means the remainder of the t-bar anchor bushing will not tightly fit the bar.

I do not like #1 either because doing anything to the bar now will potentially cause stress risers and that's the last thing I need on a torsion bar.

Damn...
 
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XfbodyX

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Id wait till you hear back from FF and go from there before doing anything. Hate to hear this though.

Dont they finish them in house?
 
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MARCH374

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Is this the 1st time a issue with the new FF Bar's has come up ? Just put a order in last week.for them.
 

AMC Diplomat

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There's a two hundredths of an inch difference? That's enough for a machine shop to take off. I know it won't go in a regular lathe but there are all kinds of mills that could make it happen. I wouldn't think it would be the powder coat. That would be an obnoxious thickness for powder coating.

I think the solution is to send you another bar or pay to have this one machined. If firm feel takes it back, I wonder if they'll start offering factory seconds. I'd buy a garbage set if it was cheap enough.
 

M_Body_Coupe

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There's a two hundredths of an inch difference? That's enough for a machine shop to take off. I know it won't go in a regular lathe but there are all kinds of mills that could make it happen. I wouldn't think it would be the powder coat. That would be an obnoxious thickness for powder coating...
Yup, 0.025-30" difference...but truth be told given the tight fight in there already this is a lot of material to remove for a DIY, so machine shop is probably the only reasonable way to do it locally.

For now, I am waiting for Frank to respond to the email, their site right now shows these bars as being "Out of Stock", so that's not looking too good for me.
 

M_Body_Coupe

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Id wait till you hear back from FF and go from there before doing anything. Hate to hear this though.

Dont they finish them in house?
Yup agreed, pending their response to my initial email.

Frank was a great guy to work with as this t-bar thing was coming together for them, so my hope is that he will make this right somehow, even if that means I ship it back to him for the actual machine work re-work. For now this is just a bit of an extra time delay on getting the coupe back on the road...and I can certianly deal with that.

What does surprise me though is that with a limited run that these were, you'd think they would inspect each and every bar to make sure the stuff leaving their "house" was in a tip-top shape. You are right that the bar forging is what they get from their supplier, but they finish it al up in house.

Here is where I'm coming from: I work for an auto mfg. company (supplier actually - AAM) so I am all too aware of manufacturing problems...but that's why you have QA department and processes in place to catch this type of stuff. How they missed this is really beyond me as the problem bar is visually larger when you look at it with a naked eye!
 

M_Body_Coupe

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In the meantime though let's think "happy thoughts"...LOL

So, a few pics and info to share, and please, don't hate me because I've been at the parts scrounging game for about three decades now...

A few tbar-LCA bushings here, a mix of Mopar service parts, as well as pure aftermarket (Moog I think).

mopar_tbar_bushings.jpg
 

M_Body_Coupe

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...and well, as we all know, the rubber and poly materials will have a different softness to them...but just how different you might ask?

Well, that's what a Durometer is for:

1) reading from the Mopar service parts set
2) reading from an Aftermarket set

As you can tell, there is a good difference between the Mopar "rubber" and the aftermarket stuff...which through human touch&feel you can tell is a lot more poly-like material.

NOTE: the 92 reading is a high-mark for the poly stuff, and that's a static indicator, so you are actually looking at the second pointer in all the pics below.

OEM_rubber_bushing_reading.jpg


AFT_rubber_bushing_high_reading_LOW.jpg
 
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M_Body_Coupe

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OK, so that final piece here are the FF poly bushings...what do these read like?

1) the high mark on the gauge shows the initial reading
2) the low mark (or where the indicator is actually pointing to) shows the low reading

The difference between these two actually show the "material flow", that being the amount of 'give' the material has.

I didn't expect the poly stuff to have as much flow to them as the indicator showed, this was more than the rubber in the Mopar service parts, and more than the quasi-poly material in the aftermarket bushings I measured.

Conclusion here being: POLY is certainly a much harder material, the readings shows this clearly and at least now I have a quantitative assessment of how these two compare.

FF_poly_bushing_check1.jpg


FF_poly_bushing_reading.jpg
 

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This entire thread is making me glad I grabbed that one NOS torsion bar
 

Camtron

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See what the say. Not like this would be a first time that someone had issues with their T bars, pretty sure they had a bad batch with hardening issues a while ago. I imagine they’ll do right for you.

If for some crazy reason they don’t, take the bar and bushing to your local machine shop and have them recut the bar to fit the bushing properly. If you got the coin and really want it done right, there’s suspension/torsion bar specialist out there who should be able to jig up and stress test it and recheck rebound rates to ensure it will be good for years to come.

I hope FF does right though. Even if it takes more time than one would like, it would be the correct thing to do with the measurements you got on your set, definitely an in-house quality issue.
 

XfbodyX

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Might be overthinking it all a bit. The number of factory flawed bars ive seen is unreal. The bushing end of the bar cut off over an inch short of being flush with the end. Some random areas that are way to thick vs others. So many rust belt cars that ive parted where the t bars have been the wrap around area of choice for the log chain that pulled them out of the ditch or snow bank marred and gouged, up with deep rust and the one thing that stands out is none of those bars ever broke.

How many T bars have we really seen broken? Very few. Even the other mopars with the straight ones see a life of abuse and the majority of time they rust out of the mounts before the bars fail. Most the time the worst that happens is they get weak from too many cycles.

I posted about this I think before FF even got into heat treating oem bars, ive done a set with good results. Not sure where the point of no return is but I did not find it.

Knowing the F production numbers for the combined years and the add in the m-s and such its easy to come up with there were over a million t bars banged out by chrysler as simple production line parts.

I cant think of one TSB on the actual bars themselves, a couple on the bushings and such but never about flaws in the bars themselves but thats not saying there wasnt but there are none in the first few years of the F-s yearly tsb books.

I do wonder why they made them as an assembly before the individual parts came out to repair. More money to be made or did they feel the service life of the bar was near the end when other parts needed replaced?

All pretty interesting to me.

I suppose I will go measure my FF bars just for kicks. I know Larry on here got his set on his m body cop car and is already abusing them in all the good ways.
 

XfbodyX

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Low 1.055 / High 1.061 consistent on both bars full length of that area. Clearly someone was asleep at the wheel on your oversize one.

Honestly if FF drops the ball id have no issue using a fine grit flexible disc on a dremel and dress it out, blend the taper and then hit it with emery cloth and call it good. No more then needed it would not put any heat in the bar. And removing material that was oversized is just getting it to spec. These are just overpriced small batch bars. How much would they be if they made 10k in a run? Dont get me wrong FF is a great asset to the mopar community and ive lots of there junk but with there limited catalog of parts they got bills and have to eat so we pay good money for there providing us with specialty products without much thought. Looking at the big picture where we work over many highly engineered parts in our engine building for example a new set of head castings and the first thing we do is bust out the die grinder, clearance a new set of rockers as needed, go crazy on a bare block to mention a few and never think twice about doing it.

IMG_20240512_105756695.jpg
 
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Duke5A

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It's probably just the powder coat was baked on too think on the end. Had this issue with one of Dad's bars on his coupe. Start sanding the powder coat with and try fitting the bushing.
 

Lightning II

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If sanding the powdercoating off doesn't let it fit into the anchor...

EDIT: never mind, I misread which end of the bar was having the issue.
 

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Powder coating is usually in mils, which is like thousandths of an inch. It would be absolutely hilarious if instead of a .002 thick coating someone put down a .02 thick coating. That almost seems impossible
 

Duke5A

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Powder coating is usually in mils, which is like thousandths of an inch. It would be absolutely hilarious if instead of a .002 thick coating someone put down a .02 thick coating. That almost seems impossible

Hey, it worked for me. Besides, you don't know what's underneath. If the spring steel is too thick then the bar is going back anyways. Just sand it down and try it.
 
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