How much to weld?

[redcoupe86]

Im going to try and put a bead of weld down onto the bottom of my front suspension torsion bar caps to try to rais it up so as to stop some squeeking i've got.

How thick should the bead of weld be?

[redcoupe86]

bump

[Zeke]

I actually understand your question although I'll bet many do not. The answer is, unfortunately, as much as it takes. Why not experiment with some shims or a stiff wire first?

[Chuck Moreland]

Are you going to replace the tbars at the same time? They are probably toast. The squeaking is your torsion bars scraping against the inside of the control arms.

It doesn't take too long for a groove to be machined into the tbar, creating a stress riser that will eventually cause the bar to fail. Less advanced cases still have the paint scrapped away, allowing rust to begin on the tbar. Again, eventually this too can cause failure.

If you weld the cap, you need to add material that a greater in thickness than the depth of the groove machined into your tbar.

But I don't recommend doing this. Welding-the-cap is a band aid that treats the symptom (squeaking), not the problem (sagging bushing). Your bushings will continue to sag further, and the squeaking will come back, and you'll ruin yet another set of torsion bar.

The proper repari is new bushings and likely new torsion bars too.

[Zeke]

Better listen to Chuck on this one.

[redcoupe86]

Originally posted by Chuck Moreland
Are you going to replace the tbars at the same time? They are probably toast. The squeaking is your torsion bars scraping against the inside of the control arms.

It doesn't take too long for a groove to be machined into the tbar, creating a stress riser that will eventually cause the bar to fail. Less advanced cases still have the paint scrapped away, allowing rust to begin on the tbar. Again, eventually this too can cause failure.

If you weld the cap, you need to add material that a greater in thickness than the depth of the groove machined into your tbar.

But I don't recommend doing this. Welding-the-cap is a band aid that treats the symptom (squeaking), not the problem (sagging bushing). Your bushings will continue to sag further, and the squeaking will come back, and you'll ruin yet another set of torsion bar.

The proper repari is new bushings and likely new torsion bars too.

Where do i look to see if the tbar has a groove? I have the crossmemeber off now and I can see where the tbar might hit the housing of the a arm but there is no grove - at least not yet - it just started squeeking last week.

[Chuck Moreland]

Pull the tbar out. The abrasion point will be obvious.

[redcoupe86]

Will do. However, I PP does not have any bushing in stock! Where else might I find them?

[Jeff Alton]

Ummmmm, Chuck has what you need. Yep, they are a little more money than the plasticky stuff, but much better. I have probably 6-8 customers who use them and are very, very happy with them.

Cheers

[redcoupe86]

I PM'd you Chuck.