RE: [DML] Driver's side torsion bar update

["Cameron, Peter" <cameron@xxxxxxx>]

I'm always interested in learning, please give me the URL of the web site of your metals engineer.
 
To me it is not a question of finding someone who does more sophisticated welding. Your guy may be the world's best welder. I question the advisability of doing any welding at all on a cryogenically annealed torsion bar, no matter how much sophistication is possessed by the guy that is staring into the blue light.
 
I'm not saying Delorean torsion bars are not an issue, but rather that I see no simpler and safer way to approach this problem than just spending the money and buying something that was designed for and is proven to meet the specs of this application, rather than trying to re-engineer without a full understanding of the problem. If your metals engineer thinks he is dealing with a $40 part, then to me it seems pretty obvious that he doesn't understand the problem. 
 
I agree that most torsion bars, springs,... are manufactured without cryo. Cryo is expensive. Must have been some reason why DeLorean chose to go that route. Just because something looks identical to a DeLorean bar, doesn't necessarily mean it will perform the same.
 
It could be that you are right, that people are making too much of this, that technology has advanced sufficiently over the past 25 years to permit making a bar without the cryo process. I know that I don't have a complete understanding of the problem. I also know that I would have to invest a lot of time, money and thoughtful research before I would be confident that I did have a proper understanding, and was in a position where I could design and build a torsion bar for this application with confidence. And I have designed and built A LOT of very sophisticated gear over the course of the past 40 years - structural engineering (bridges, buildings,..), design and building of heavy construction equipment, sophisticated tooling for major manfactures of screw machines and chuckers, helium 3 refrigerators that operated a few hundred millikelvin above absolute zero, components for superconducting magnets,.... I've managed major R&D projects with budgets of tens of millions of dollars. To me this torsion bar looks non-trivial.
 
I am simply urging caution. The torion bar may not be a suspension part. But the door is pretty damn heavy, I would not want to be getting in or out of my car when it broke, even with the presence of the damping strut to help ease the fall.
 
Peter Cameron
vin 3579

________________________________

From: dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of jrc2905
Sent: Mon 7/30/2007 2:00 PM
To: dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [DML] Driver's side torsion bar update



[moderator snip] 

First if you are just going to be critical about this guy you can
visit his web site. Find me someone who does more sophisticated
welding than this guy on the East coast and I will go there. He did
an examination of the break and suspects bar may have broken due to
an impurity in the bar material at that spot, but was just making a
comment.

Second if you do not think the driver' side torsion bar is an issue,
try to buy one. Not an issue for you because yours in not broken?
That part is at least 27 years old. The forces of time and stress,
not to mention your door hinge rubbing against it are working against
the useful life of this bar. I have been contacted buy numerous
people who would buy a bar just to have one in case theirs breaks, so
their car does not became an expensive paper weight. There are some
people who have come into possession of some bars but they holding on
to them until they can get their asking price of $2500.00.

Do a search on the manufacture of torsion bars and you find that the
Delorean bar is not unique. The exact shape of the heads used on the
Delorean torsion bar is the same head used on all torsion bars made
today. You could probably buy a torsion made for something else today
that looks identical to the Delorean torsion bar and is very
inexpensive.

I only came here to find useful information that may help me with my
broken torsion bar. I now have a used one and hope to have a repaired
one soon and maybe have one made.
I think people here are making way too much out of this bar because
of the way it was made. No manufacturer makes bars this way today and
they make hundreds of thousands of them for critical applications.
Would a replacement bar be as good, maybe not, would it work, sure.
If it lost strength over time who cares if there was a replacement at
reasonable cost. It is not like it is a suspension part that would
cause you to crash if it failed.





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