QA1 Strut Rod Adjustment?

[JR_Charger]

Is the length adjustable on these? On one of mine, this nut at the top is loose -

I don't think the factory rods are adjustable, but I don't know much about it. For all I know strut rods are adjustable for alignment.

 

[matthon]

Yes. Loosen both ends, adjust, tighten.

 

[dvw]

I just installed a pair of these on a friends 67 Satellite. If you get them too short it messes with the bump steer. With our first guess at length the toe change from full rise to ride height was nearly a 1/2". As I remember making them 2 1/2 turns longer (pushing the lower arm rearward raising the outer tie rod) brought it down to about 1/8" change. So be careful.
Doug

 

[Boris7K]

I ran into this when installing these rods also. No instructions covering adjustment so at ride height I adjusted rods, installed bolts and tried to get the best alignment of rod ends while tightening the jam nuts. I'm open to any correction if I did this incorrectly.

 

[bobsgtx]

Go to FABO and look up member 72bluNblu. He goes thru the procedure to adjust them. They are not for adjusting alignment. They are for taking the slop out of the factory rubber bushings and make the suspension move freely thru it's travel. Forgot to add these are usually used with poly or delrin LCA bushings.

 

[Project66]

My alignment guy absolutely used the adjustments on my QA1 strut rods to set the alignment on my car. That's why they are marketed as "fully adjustable".

 

[JR_Charger]

Has anyone busted a QA1 strut rod in regular street use? I've found posts about busted strut rods, even factory rods. I can imagine one might break in a drag racer popping wheelies all the time, which I will not be doing. I may hit the occasional pothole and expansion joints are unavoidable.

 

[70ChargerRT]

My alignment guy absolutely used the adjustments on my QA1 strut rods to set the alignment on my car. That's why they are marketed as "fully adjustable".

Exactly! Let your alignment guy do the adjustments!!!!

 

[Project66]

Has anyone busted a QA1 strut rod in regular street use? I've found posts about busted strut rods, even factory rods. I can imagine one might break in a drag racer popping wheelies all the time, which I will not be doing. I may hit the occasional pothole and expansion joints are unavoidable.

I have only driven the car about 800 miles since I rebuilt the suspension a year ago, but I haven't had any issues. I just replaced my steering gear. While I was under the car, I took a good look at everything to see how it's holding up. The strut rods look like they did when I installed them. I saw no discernable wear-and tear.

I have no qualms about driving the car on any road at reasonable speeds. Then again, my "sketch" tolerance might be a little higher than people with good sense...

Joking aside - Others may see things differently, but to me the stock strut rod set-up looked pretty sketchy. After looking at the parts side-by-side, I had little doubt that the QA1 set-up was an improvement in every way.

 

[JR_Charger]

I can see the factory rod being stronger than the QA1 tube, if the tube is aluminum.

I'm almost done with the install, but the driver's side has got a bind in it. The passenger side is smooth with the front of the bar indexed like this -

The driver's side is indexed the same but something is catching somewhere.

I've noticed, if you start with the LCA in it's lowest position and raise it, the strut bar rotates over, hits the limits of it's side-to-side rotational travel, and then goes up. Maybe it's not a problem within the normal travel range of the suspension. I suppose that, normally, the LCA would not hang this far down even in a jump, because the torsion bars would hold it up.

 

[matthon]

Sounds like something is bent out of shape or worn out.
I have 2 cars with these with no issues.

 

[JR_Charger]

It's all new QA1 stuff - strut rods, K member, LCAs.

I'd like to see how others have their strut rods indexed. The position shown above worked was smoothest for me, but maybe I should take into consideration the lowest normal position of the LCA - whatever that is.

 

[70ChargerRT]

It's all new QA1 stuff - strut rods, K member, LCAs.

I'd like to see how others have their strut rods indexed. The position shown above worked was smoothest for me, but maybe I should take into consideration the lowest normal position of the LCA - whatever that is.

No problems with my strut rods either. Running all Q-A1 except for their K-frame as it’s over a 20 year old design from them and I just don’t like it. They have you mounting the sway arm under it and I’ve seen with some modifications you can run a sway arm through it and the steering box mount isn’t much stronger, If any than a factory K-frame. I wouldn’t care to go to a Tubalar K-frame but haven’t seen any I like.

 

[JR_Charger]

I think I've got my problem figured out. When the rear nut is tightened down to 75 ft/lbs, the strut rod is locked into place, and the heim joint doesn't have enough side-to-side twist in it for the LCA to have a full range of motion. If the rear nut isn't cinched up tight on the LCA, and the strut rod can spin at the rear, then the heim joint is fine; unless you're trying to build a "Back to the Future" hovercar and need the LCA to drop to vertical.

If the rear nut has to be cinched down tight, than I don't think it's possible to avoid binding; and stressing the heim joint. If you index the strut rod perfectly, cinch down the rear nut, and move the LCA through it's full range of travel while the front nut is not cinched down, the front piece will rock back and forth as the limit of the heim joint's travel is passed.

If you followed the instructions, and didn't tighten the rear nut down until the car was on the ground, you'd probably never notice. The strut rod wouldn't bind unless you got close to the bump stops or the front end was in the air.

That's what it looks like to me. Unless there's a reason why the rear nut absolutely has to be cinched down, I think it should be left loose enough for the strut rod to be able to rotate.

 

[jayco91]

My alignment guy absolutely used the adjustments on my QA1 strut rods to set the alignment on my car. That's why they are marketed as "fully adjustable".

I think you need a new alignment guy.

 

[RemCharger]

The adjustment allows you to pull the bottom balljoint ahead to gain some caster. It's a nice feature.

 

[JR_Charger]

The adjustment allows you to pull the bottom balljoint ahead to gain some caster. It's a nice feature.

Hey, that sounds like a nice feature to have. I used my stock upper control arms with reversed offset bushings. If that's good for 2 degrees, and the adjustable strut rods give me another degree, than I should be able to get to the magic 3 degrees of caster.

If I can get to 3 degrees of caster, is there any reason to switch to tubular control arms?