Re: [DML] Torsion Bar failure?

["tmpintnl" <tobyp@xxxx>]

This is the land of the free and home of the brave ... feel free to be 
brave! The torsion bar is loaded with the door in the closed 
position, and is relatively relaxed when the door is open. I 
personally know of one car where both bars failed, a couple of months 
apart. The failures happened while driving down the road with the 
doors closed (obviously). The only challenge was getting the door 
open to get out of the car. A strong guy can do it with a little 
grunting, but if you're not so strong ... No other damage occurred to 
the car. I personally have never had a torsion bar failure in my car. 
I don't know of any injuries from a failure - the guy who owned the 
car mentioned above said he almost had a heart attack when the bar 
broke with a BANG just above his head. The bar does not fly off 
anywhere, it just snaps, and then is relaxed. The failures are 
actually more prone to happen in cars with deteriorated gas struts 
because people tend to over-tighten the bar to compensate for the bad 
gas strut, instead of paying the money for a new strut. "Pay me now, 
or pay me later" is a good motto for this. Good fresh gas struts and 
properly lubed hinges will keep the adjustments of the bars to a 
minumum, which is a good thing. I very much appreciated the post that 
gave the link to the Patent Office. I was able to read the patent 
information, and these torsion bars are designed to operate at between 
80% - 95% of ultimate allowable stresses. That is incredible! But 
... I digress.

Toby Peterson VIN 2248
Winged1 


--- In dmcnews@xxxx, "at88mph" <at88mph@xxxx> wrote:
> All this talk about the torsion bars has got me wondering... 
Between this and the trailing arm bolt issue, I've now gone 
back to driving my other car. :-/
> 
> 
> Thanks for any insight!