Rear Torsion bar L and R HELP!

[stubble88]

Question
My old bars from a 68 are marked L and R. Obvious what that means. But my 24mm bars I’m installing has one bar marked with a P. Only half obvious. Am I to assume this mean passenger side? Other bar has an S and 8 ��

[stubble88]

[stubble88]

I can’t be the only one with torsion bars with these numbers.

[Arne2]

Who is the maker of these bars?

[stubble88]

They look like Porsche bars. VW markings are on the ends.
I believe off of a turbo.

[HaroldMHedge]

P & S are Port and Starboard.

The squid in me is coming through.

[stubble88]

this is insane!

[Solamar]

It's not really all that important, especially if they are new. Of course these look used, so ideally you works want to match the 'set' that they have seen. There not marked so you have a 50 50 shot. I wouldn't lose much sleep over it.

[stubble88]

Ok. I’ve read how these can only rotate a certain direction. They are a pain as it is to get set up correctly. I just don’t want to have to re due it all. I might just spring for new ones.

[Mark Salvetti]

I wonder if there is a way of checking which way they had been mounted? Maybe install the inner splines, then rig up something that lets you put a torque wrench on the outer splines. A 12-point socket might fit.

Then try to twist the torsion bar, the direction that requires the least amount of torque is the way it was originally mounted?

Might take too much force to do this by hand.

Mark

[stubble88]

Thanks for all the advice. I appreciate it.
I went ahead and bought another set that was marked on removal.
Thanks.

[manbridge 74]

I would examine the splines closely to see if lengths of witness marks were the same etc. Might get close that way.

The other thing is that while the bar loading is primarily in one direction they also unload past center the other way when suspension tops out. Probably not worth losing sleep over as said above...

[Kraftwerk]

I have always wondered about this...

[Eagledriver]

I seriously doubt that there’s a right and left difference.

[Walt Fricke]

We are all told not to reverse these - I think it is in the factory manual, and was for VWs as well.

However, about 15 or 20 years ago owners of Porsche race cars of that era were advised to reverse their axles after X hours. Seems there was an axle failure issue. Seemed contradictory, though of course, like many race car parts, these were timed parts - replace after X hours.

So much for the theory that the gradual strain of the car sitting on the torsion bars (way more time and force that way than the suspension falling down over bumps) which leads to a twist over time doesn't do well if you reverse the bars and start them creeping the other direction. Chris Seven (RIP) would have explained the metallurgical thinking behind all this.

I thought briefly about port/starbord too, but while starbord in German starts with an S, port starts with a B.