Wheel Alignment

[steven d. ferguson]

I could use some assistance on this....
After replacing my front knuckles, (great original bearings with 40,000
miles on them but unfortunately, they were spinning in the knuckles, not
the races), both lower ball joints (the PO bolted them in w/nuts on the
outside so they got hammered by the steering stops until they loosened
up & cracked the control arms), the idler arm and reinforcing the
control arms I was ready for a 6-wheel alignment. As soon as the
alignment shop went to establish the correct ride height they discovered
one torsion bar adjusted all the way UP and the other all the way DOWN.
Unfortunately, the one all the way UP was on the low side of the coach &
vice/versa for the one all the way DOWN. This put a stop to the
proceedings. My question is: Is it possible for the torsion bars to be
"out of timing (or index)? How do I straighten this mess out?
One more question. After assembling the knuckles, hubs & mounting the
rotors, the first application of the brake pedal went full travel
lighting the "brake light" on the dash. Any way to reset this as the
brakes are fine?
TIA
Steve Ferguson
'76 EII San Diego

 

[travis martin]

. After assembling the knuckles, hubs & mounting the
> rotors, the first application of the brake pedal went full travel
> lighting the "brake light" on the dash. Any way to reset this as the
> brakes are fine?

Hi, Steve,

What has happened on your brakes is that the front caliper pistons were
pushed back into the caliper to reinstall them after the suspension work.
When you applied the brakes the first time, the master cylinder met no
resistance from the fronts since the pistons weren't against the pads, but
the rear brakes were normal, so it set the switch for the imbalance in
pressure. No problem, just irritating.

I have on several occasions been able to reset the imbalance switch by
simply standing on the brakes extremely hard after making sure all of the
slack is out. Start the engine first so as to have vacuum assist. Can't
guarantee the results, but is easy to try and has worked for me. If not, you
can open a rear bleeder and press on the brake pedal till the imbalance
sensing piston recenters then close the bleeder. More trouble, but will work
for sure. I'm told that you can manually re-center it too by pushing in on
the end of the combi valve, but I've never done it. The stand on it trick
usually works for me.

By the way, if you have the calipers off again, you can prevent this by
applying the brakes very slowly and gently until the pistons are seated
against the pads. Then when you bring system pressure up by using the brakes
there won't be an imbalance.

Travis