DIY Adjustable Panard Rod ? couple of questions

Hi all,

A couple of questions about making an adjustable Panard Rod ? please critique my approach.

1.) I?m thinking of cutting the axle end off the standard rod, welding on a threaded tube adjuster and adding a rosejoint (heimjoint in the USA) on the end. It?s currently standard length with polybushes both ends. My reasoning is that then I?m only adding one new welded joint to the bar, as well as providing some flexibility to the suspension ? I?m not convinced my rear suspension mounts were welded on entirely straight from the factory, a while ago I fitted a full set of polybushes throughout the car and the last bolt for the rear suspension was a struggle to line up during reassembly. The rear suspension wasn?t great like that, it was rattly, hard and jittery, and it?s now a lot better after swapping the axle to trailing arm bushes back to rubber which has provided some flexibility in that location ? which also made getting the last bolt in a lot easier. For this round I?ve got a set of adjustable torque rods with rosejoints on both ends and I want to do something with the panard bar ? I appreciate that I may pick up some noise with this swap, but I want to get the rear suspension working as it should. If the noise is really bad then I?ll cut up my existing torque rods and keep the body end polybush and the axle end rosejoint.

2.) The car is lowered 40mm ? about how much adjustment do I need and in which direction? I?m pretty sure the bar will need to get shorter, but I?m here so I might as well check. So I?m expecting to set up the cut/weld in adapter/rose joint so that wound out the bar will be standard length, with the ability to wind the rose joint in and make the bar shorter. But about how much shorter?

All comments appreciated.

Cheers

bugjam1999 said:

Hi all,
I’m not convinced my rear suspension mounts were welded on entirely straight from the factory, a while ago I fitted a full set of polybushes throughout the car and the last bolt for the rear suspension was a struggle to line up during reassembly. The rear suspension wasn’t great like that, it was rattly, hard and jittery, and it’s now a lot better after swapping the axle to trailing arm bushes back to rubber which has provided some flexibility in that location

All comments appreciated.

Cheers

Click to expand...

The car was made correctly. Poly bushes on 240s ruin the handling as you quickly found out.

The last bolt wouldn't go in because the poly was causing your entire rear suspension to bind and be preloaded which is the exact opposite of what you need on a solid axle rear.

Well... there?s some mis alignment somewhere in the rear suspension, but without very accurate measuring equipment/ a jig I?m not able to tell if it?s the brackets on the car, the location of the bolt holes in the trailing arms, the location of the brackets on the rear axle or the torque arms. All I can say is when fitting the rear suspension back together with full polybushes the last bolt was about 3 or 4 mm out.

The result was as you say above, the suspension was binding- but if everything had lined up surely it would have worked fine?

Anyway, it is what is it.

Any comments on the approach of cutting one end off the panard bar and how much adjustment I need would be appreciated.

Cheers

There is a thread in here about just such a thing (Making your own adjustable panhard). Give it a search.

I did it to mine, but made it adjustable without removing one of the ends.

Your best bet is to put the rose joint on the body end to keep it simple.
The bar is too small to take a insert big enough on the axle end

That?s good advice regarding tube size - cheers.

After a rethink I?ll probably take the same route as chuck w and weld an adjuster into the straight section.

Does anyone know the id of the tube?

Cheers

There’s enough room to add a 3/4” turnbuckle on the axle end. You can also do this with 1x 3-4” 3/4” coarse bolt and 2x nuts. It’s $5 in hardware and 15min of your time.