Re: Please HELP my worst nightmare

["jtrealtywebspannet" <jtrealty@xxxx>]

Although the torsion bars are under more stress when the doors are 
closed compared to the total stress imposed on the bars even if you 
keep the doors open you are not really reducing the stress all that 
much. Same goes for the gas pressure in the struts. The difference is 
that over time the pressure does leak out as opposed to the stress on 
the torsion bars which over the life of the bar changes very little 
even with changes in temperature. Until you pass the elastic limit of 
the materiel in the torsion bars they will return to the shape that 
they origionaly were. In normal usage of the torsion bars that doesn't 
happen.
What probably did happen to your bar is that it got scratched at some 
time in it's life. Stess concentrated on the scratch and became a 
crack which caused the catastophic failure. I have seen this happen. 
It happened to me on my passenger bar. The bar rubbed on the rear 
hinge. I now keep a small piece of rubber cut from an inner tube 
between the torsion bars and the rear hinge. It is especially 
important to use the rubber at the time the bars are adjusted as they 
can move around a lot more and have a greater chance of contacting the 
rear hinge. On some cars the bar is closer to the hinge then on 
others. You should be able to pull the bar away from the rear hinge 
and slip in between a small piece of rubber about 1" by 2". Do it on 
both doors with a small dab of glue to keep it in there.
David Teitelbaum
vin 10757



--- In dmcnews@xxxx, "Toby Peterson" <tobyp@xxxx> wrote:
> Paul - I can't personally help you in terms of a replacement torsion 
> bar, but I can tell you that the torsion bars are at their highest 
> loading state with the doors closed. That will be pretty much the 
> only time you will see a failure of the bar - either while opening 
or