62-72 (Shorter) Torsion Bars in a 73-74????

I was wondering if anyone has completely ditched the bolt in torsion bar crossmember in a 73-74 and welded the hexes into the transmission mount crossmember in the chassis so you could run the shorter 62-72 torsion bars???

I know this has been done by people and i'm wondering what their process was to do it. The reason for my asking is i'm fixing to do a T-56 Magnum conversion and this transmission is much longer and the torsion bar crossmember will more than likely be right in the way of the tail shaft and the new trans mount.

My simple mind says all i'd have to do is cut the internal hexes from the old crossmember and weld them into the trans crossmember that's part of the chassis...... But, my simple mind has gotten me in a bind more than once and would greatly appreciate any ones experience with this modification.....

Thanks,
JJ

I thought about doing this when I replaced the bent up torsion cross member from my 74. I ended up NOT doing it and had steel bushings made to replace the rubber bushings to make it solid with my replacement cross member.

However I did remove the hex torsion bar anchors from my twisted up garbage cross member and found they will fit and sit perfectly in the transmission cross member where the longer torsion bars go through it. But I DIDNT measure the distance from the control arm pivot torsion socket to the 'relocated' anchor to say yay or nay to the conversion to the shorter bar.

If you do the measurement please let me and us here know if it will work for the shorter 72 and back bars.

The 73 and up bars are 43.6" long vs the 72 and prior bars 41"

Kernel Sanders said:

I thought about doing this when I replaced the bent up torsion cross member from my 74. I ended up NOT doing it and had steel bushings made to replace the rubber bushings to make it solid with my replacement cross member.

However I did remove the hex torsion bar anchors from my twisted up garbage cross member and found they will fit and sit perfectly in the transmission cross member where the longer torsion bars go through it. But I DIDNT measure the distance from the control arm pivot torsion socket to the 'relocated' anchor to say yay or nay to the conversion to the shorter bar.

If you do the measurement please let me and us here know if it will work for the shorter 72 and back bars.

The 73 and up bars are 43.6" long vs the 72 and prior bars 41"

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There is a feller on my 73-74 Facebook group who did this conversion. He said he just cut out the hexes from the member, clocked them perfect, welded them into the trans member and used the shorter 62-72 bars. He also said that the 73-74 cars still retained the floor reinforcements found in the earlier cars so doing this conversion is as simple as welding in the hexes.

it seems to me that the bars would be somewhat testy to install as the lower control arms sit a couple inches lower because of the k frame isolation bushings. the bars would now be at angle and put a side load on them? with them being shorter would also complicate things. I have never done this but I have also contemplated the idea

WP29440SE said:

it seems to me that the bars would be somewhat testy to install as the lower control arms sit a couple inches lower because of the k frame isolation bushings. the bars would now be at angle and put a side load on them? with them being shorter would also complicate things. I have never done this but I have also contemplated the idea

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I see where you're going with that idea but the hole in the cross member where the bar passes through is aligned. All that needs to be done is weld in the hex bungs in from the torsion bar member

The T bars go through the unibody crosmember hole centered, SO the isolation shouldn't be affecting the vertical aligment.

Nacho-RT74 said:

The T bars go through the unibody crosmember hole centered, SO the isolation shouldn't be affecting the vertical aligment.

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I didn't really get under there and study it , I was going on what I remembered when I was rebuilding the front end , I guess I remembered incorrectly lol

I’m doing this right now on my 73 charger. I have a 72 crossmember which have the hex’s already welded in.