Installed Lakewood traction bars on 67 with TVS and they angle down in the front. The instructions explicitly say not to drive a vehicle with traction bars that angle down.... Of course I could not resist a test drive. It made a world of difference eliminating all wheel hop and now tracks straight instead of broadsiding....

But, do I need to install shims and maybe even spacers ? If I just shim them they will be too tight in the front. Right now they gap correctly on both sides.

http://www.lenherr.com/images/lakewood1-web.jpg
http://www.lenherr.com/images/lakewood2-web.jpg

Is there a engineering reason why they cannot angle down or is it just that you could spear them into a speed bump and rip the rear end out ?

Thanks in advance...

Its been more than 20 years since I read any Lakewood traction bar instructions, but I'll bet they just want to cover their a** legally. I notice you have multi leaf springs in a single leaf axle housing. Is there a hole (recess) in the housing for the spring center bolt, or maybe the center bolt just sits in a rubber pad above the spring. If there is no hole or recess in the housing, I'd suggest you do away with the rubber pad and replace it with a steel spacer with a center bolt locating hole drilled in it, and have it welded into the spring seat. No need to have the rear end able to move around.

I will have to think about the center bolt... I know Hotchkis designed the system on a single leaf 67. I don't really care for the rubber pads.

That is the problem with the lakewood bars. The Competition Engineering bars are designed with more angle to eliminate this issue. The front of the CE bar is also longer to put the snubber directly under the spring eye. The lakewood bar locates the snubber behind the eye causing the spring to bend.
You also don't have much of an air gap between the snubber and the spring. I usually shoot for 1/2" on a dual purpose car so that the ride doesn't suffer.
That square front u-bolt is too far away from the top of the spring. That keeps the bar from dropping down on hard braking.

The Lakewood bars also have multiple mounting holes for the snubber bumper to fine tune the launch. You can try moving the snubber to another hole.

Wow. Someone should post side by side pics of Lakewood and CE bars. The front U-Bolt cannot be moved since it has a bracket welded on bar. If you meant I should tighten it more then it would pre-load the bar. My biggest question is whether it hurts to have them angled down ? They seem to be working fine. Ride is still smooth and they eliminated wheel hop and sideways difting.

My biggest question is whether it hurts to have them angled down ? They seem to be working fine. Ride is still smooth and they eliminated wheel hop and sideways difting.Apparently, you have them working for you. My CE's are angled the same way.

Wow. Someone should post side by side pics of Lakewood and CE bars. The front U-Bolt cannot be moved since it has a bracket welded on bar. If you meant I should tighten it more then it would pre-load the bar. My biggest question is whether it hurts to have them angled down ? They seem to be working fine. Ride is still smooth and they eliminated wheel hop and sideways difting.
Simple just pick up the smaller snubbers, thats what i did and it gives me an air gap of 3/4 inch.

I have the same bars on mine and it has the same angle. I'd just run them and forget about it.

Mine were the same way. I trimed the front snubbers and pre-loaded the front u-bolts.... worked fine.