DDK - Die Deutschen Klassiker

hi, me again

after a weekend of removing (nearly) the last few major pieces of kit from the car comes the torsion bars, see picture....

as the notes on the picture hopefuly explain, I am assuming the front bracket (with the 2 holes) will come off, but is there a right way to do this, one of those 3 pronged hub pullers perhaps ? and do i pull the torsion bar out of the rear end or can I get some kind of cap off at the front end and drive it out, the Haynes manual talks about a push in end cap at the front end but its firmly rusted in as far as i can see

jp

You need to remove the dust cap which is a press-fit in the front end of the A-arm - these are only made of relatively-thin mild steel & it's often difficult to remove them without damaging them. I have removed them in the past by drilling a hole in the centre, inserting a large (coarse) sheet metal screw into the hole & clamping this screw in some vice-grips (mole wrench). Then tap the vice-grips backwards with a hammer & if you're lucky the cap will come out without too much damage. You can then tap the bar out from the opposite end (I use a copper-headed hammer to avoid damaging the torsion bar).

If re-using the dust cap use some epoxy (eg Araldite) to seal the hole you drilled.

andy

thanks for that, just to confirm then the torsion bars have to come out of the front hole....its just that the bentley manual says pull torsion out from rear of car, but there again it is written for an SC........?

don't have a copper hamer so I'll try a bit of wood !

ta

jp

JP

When I took my front suspension apart, I removed the opposite end to the end cap (the cup shaped part with a bolt through it to raise or lower the suspension). I put a small bit of pressure on the torsion bar and the end cap at the other end popped out quite easily (get some WD40 on there).

The bracket you mention should come off quite easily with a bit of pressure. I guess you are taking the opportunity to replace bushes some don't worry about damage to the old bushes.

Remeber to grease the length of the torsion bar when you re-fit.

It's well worth getting the a-arms, brackets and cross member blasted and powder coated - they come out looking brand new.

Steve

Just thought I'd say that the A-arms can corrode horribly internally.

This is not always very obvious..but can cause a very nasty accident.

I have a not entirely morbid habit of looking very closely at race cars which have crashed...you will be interested how many have clearcut obvious fatigue fractures, more often than not in corroded parts..

I am in the habit of tapping these A-arms with a little ball-pein hammer all over..this sadly often shows some soft spots.

This can obviously be weld repaired..strong but not necessarily very pretty..

Kind regards
David