On a Toro 67 I am unable to remove the axles even after removing everything except the Lower Control Arm (LCA). If I remove the LCA I will not only be able to remove the axles but also be able to clean, repaint and it and its bushings, which doesnt look great. In one of my trips to the US i bough a torsion bar removal tool but I was unable to hang it to the crossmember, not sure if because of the diameter of the tool or the rubber cushions of the body are shot or both, so, and excuse now my naivete and/or ignorance, i was wondering if there is a way to remove the LCA without resorting to any specific tool. Regards. Raul.

 

Raul,
Do you have a lift or is the car on jack stands? You can get the lower control arms out without using the tool. I did not even remove the torsion bars from the crossmember. The picture below with the torsion bars and crossmember laying on the floor is as far disassembled as I went during restoration.

To get the control arms off, first get the car well supported and high off the ground (a lift would be best, but at a minimum you will need a good set of tall jack stands). Next, remove the torsion bar preload adjustment bolt completely (located in crossmember). Use a floor jack to jack up under the lower control arm. Remove the shock and spindle assembly. Slowly lower the control arm with the floor jack until all the pressure is off the torsion bars (the lower control arm needs to swing down pretty far so you will need to lift the car fairly high in step 1). With the jack out of the way, press down on the lower ball joint and remove the preload adjustment bar from the crossmember (the part the preload adjustment bolt threads into). This will be a two-person job unless you simply hang some weights from the lower ball joint area. Once the bar is removed, you can remove the pressure from the lower ball joint. At this point, the torsion bar will not have any resistance. Now, you can remove the lower control arm bolts, drop it down enough to move it forward and slide the torsion bar our of its hole. The lower control arm is now completely free of the car. I hope this makes sense. If you keep track of the orientation (clocking) of the lower control arm and torsion bar, you can reassemble the parts in the reverse order.

Tom

 

Hi Tom:

First of all thanks a lot for taking the time sharing your knowledge, and for confirming my suspicion it can be done! although I am not yet sure that with my constraints I will be able to raise the car enough to release the torsion bar tension. I am doing all this in the garage of my house which is not the size typically found in the US (it is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina) so I have very limited space between car and walls, I had to angle the car so I can work one wheel at the time!. Now the only thing left on the LCA is the sway bar and the torsion bar and the LCA is resting on wood blocks. I have the following questions until I attempt to do this:

A) Can you estimate how high the stands should be in order to this job?

B) Can it be done one wheel at a time?

C) When you mention removing the preload adjustment bar are you referring to what is referenced in the CSM as the torsion bar arm?

D) The CSM indicates that once the torsion bar tension is released if you pull down the LCA along with the torsion bar the torsion bar arm should drop from the crossmember, why in your example should not this happen?.

Once again so many thanks for all this and only is you happen to have time please answer my questions.

All the Best

Raul

 

Here are some answers to your questions (hopefully):

A) The control arm needs to point almost straight down using the method I described. So, if you measure from the lower control arm bolt out to the ball joint that is about how high the car needs to be.

B) I highly recommend doing this one wheel at a time rather than trying to do both at once.

C) I can't access my digital copy of the service manual right now but, the bar that needs to be removed is in the pic below. It is the small rectangular piece that the large bolt is screwed into. The "pork chop" shaped piece in the photo is usually referred to as a key. The large bolt is adjusted to put pressure onto the key ("pork chop") which adds or removes rotational preload to the torsion bar. The problem is that even after the bolt is completely removed, the bar will still be putting pressure on the key. The torsion bar removal tool is used to remove the bar without swinging the lower control arm the whole way down.
D) The procedure in the CSM basically uses the same process I described. The main difference is that the CSM procedure uses the torsion bar tool to add more preload to the key before removing the small bar from the crossmember. With the way I described, the preload is removed by taking off the shock and spindle followed by lowering and then pulling down on the lower control arm. Either way, the bar will not just fall out of the crossmember once you have removed the preload. The bar has grooves that fit into crescent moon shapes cut in the crossmember (see pic below). Once the preload is off the bar (whether by using the tool to add more preload to the key or by lowering the control arm to remove all of the preload) the small bar in the pic can be removed from the crossmember. Once the preload and bar have been removed, the torsion bar needs to slide forward for the key to come out of the crossmember. The reason I did not remove the torsion bars from the keys is that I could not get them out. The torsion bars slid out of the lower control arm pockets easily, but even after I had the crossmember/ torsion bar assembly out of the car I could not drive the torsion bars out of the keys.


I hope this helps to clear some things up.

 

Hi Tom: Now, Thanks to you, I finally understand how all this work! My confusion was that I have not realized the bar (or nut per the CSM) will not fall down once the adjustment screw is taken out, it actually somehow still rest on the crossmember impending the torsion bar to

fully release its tension and therefore permitting the LCA to be released without an exaggerated swing down!. Also it also explains the usefulness of the Tool which was not clear for me till now. I am attaching the relevant page of the manual for reference. Thanks again Tom.