Might be lowering the 405 this weekend depending if i get the front springs in time, any suggestions or tips for the rear bars? cause i've never lowered one of these setup's before so any help would be appreciated cheers.

Only move them by one spline.

Yeah i was thinking 1 spline, cheers mate for your reply

I'm not sure what that means.

The correct way to do it is make dummy solid shock absorbers that hold the car at the desired ride height. Then re-insert the torsion bars where they want to fit.

Correct you can move one ore two splines too but the adjustment is pretty big by the splines. If jou rotate the bars you can find much more presice adjustments too the desired height.

Well the springs have arrived so the lowering will commence tomorrow

Well nothing went to plan today, we couldnt get the torsion bars out what so ever wasted a whole day, is there any other fixings for these bars which we are missing and has anyone got any pics or a guide for the 405 lowering, please

http://www.nigelwilkins.co.uk/Technical/GTi-6/lowering.htm

Thats a really good guide. I take it that the 405 and 306 rear suspension are very similar? Because apparently the 405 rear beam is a bit different to a 205 rear beam

306 rear beam actually looks pretty similar to the 205 one from what i can see in that guide!

The thing is has anyone actually done a 405 guide cause all the pictures are totally different and can or could confuse someone, personally i think the 405 setup is totally different as in looks to the 205 & 306 but doing the job is kinda similar, but seeing as i now know where the torsion bars are and am now familiar on what to do i recon i could make guide no one would probably use it but maybe someone sometime might

Miles said in the other rear suspension thread that a 405 rear beam is closer to a 106 rear beam, so if anyone knows of a guide for lowering a 106 then that could make things a bit clearer

As said, the basic design of 405 and 106 are the same and 205, 309 and 306 are the same. The problem with removing the torsion bars is that they probably haven't been out for the last 10 years or so. One thing that makes it a lot easier is to spray either end of both bars, inside and outside of where they attach, with WD40 every day for a week leading up to doing the lowering. It's amazing the difference this can make.

If you haven't got the facilities to make a dummy shock then jack the car up, remove the shock and ARB and measure the free height to the centre of the hub from a reference point such as the top of the arch or a flat level surface. Support the trailing arm on a jack and remove the torsion bar. Jack the arm to the required height and push the torsion bar back home, rotating it until it lines up easily with the splines.

I have known 405 bars to lock into the splines very tight. If they wont come out with a slide hammer then make a drift that screws into the thread at one end with a step that sits onto the end of the bar and use a copper hammer to drive out. If the drift screws in fully up to a step then you will get no damage to the bar.

Didnt do any of that stuff!

Jacked the car way up, marked the torsion bars, turned em, and lowered the car!

Perfick!!!!

Look at the picture at the top left of this page. That's my car. It's lowered. Although they look better when lowered, and with all due respect to Miles, I find it's too bouncy for my liking. BUT I've yet to drive a lowered car that doesn't feel like this.