66-67 Dodge Charger Source Guide

Suspension Improvements

Posted by:Curt on 01/14/04
The ultimate early Charger suspension improvement (well maybe not the ultimate but pretty darn good) is to switch the K frame and lower arms to the 1970 style with the sway bar going through the K member. This setup has the better through bolt idler arm design, provides better oil filter access, and the sway bar mounting design allows the popular 73-76 A body disc brake conversion to be installed with forward hung calipers for factory engineered hose routing.

Posted by:Gordon Albrecht on 03/24/04
Competition Engineering adjustable front shocks, Edelbrock Classic IAS rear shocks, Mopar Performance 6 leaf left and 7 leaf right rear springs, 1" over shackles, Mopar Performance .96 torsion bars, Polyurethane bushings, stock big block front sway bar, Mopar Performance rear 3/4" sway bar, Mopar Performance sub frame connectors. Also put on 8" x 17" front and 9 1/2 x 17" rear wheels

Installing New Suspension Parts

Posted by:Aarin on 03/02/04
When you convert to polyurethane bushings, they say to leave the outer shell of the original bushing in place. You sound like you are using stock rubber bushings, in which case the entire original bushing needs to come out. This is hard to describe, but bear with me - when you look at the arm right now, everything toward the middle of the arm, from the vertical surface is the bushing shell, as well as the flange on the outer side of the arm. The only portion that is part of the arm is the 1/4 'extruded' part leading out to that flange. If you look at your new bushing, it will be easy to understand what is the arm and what is the residual shell.

I have rebuilt about 10 front suspensions and have slowly evolved an effective process.
The way I always take out these bushings is to :
1) clean off as much coarse rust as possible (pieces of scale will prevent it from pushing out or damage the bore in the arm)
2) take a regular 4" grinder and grind two 'flats' the length of the bushing until you almost break through the wall.
3) place the arm with bushing (flange side down) in a thick wall pipe (or spanning the jaws of your vice if you have to).
4) one good smack with a heavy hammer and it is out !
The flats allow the bushing to deform and reduce the interference so that you only have to move it about 1/8" to blast it out. I then use the Miller Tool set to press in the new bushings, followed by paint to protect from future rust.

(If you try to press out scaly bushings with the kit, you will destroy the power-screw - ask me how I know that)