Creepin' Trunk Roller

[mostrow]

A low tech question, but one that frustrates me nevertheless...

My passenger side trunk roller has been replaced twice. It likes to roll itself outward on the torsion bar until it's ready to fall off of the spring. Every time I open the rear trunk, I must work this roller back on using my fingers. What gives? Do I have a bent torsion spring for the trunk? Is my roller defective? What do you do about this problem?

Thanks,
Matt

[joncdeke]

You may want to replace the whole mechanizism with Pelicans's replacement shock type kit. I plan on doing the same if mine gives me anymore trouble.


Jon

[John2kx]

Matt,

Check the pin and mounting device roller slides on. I just replaced my drivers side hinge braket (piece that roller mounts on) with replacement purchased through pelican parts and left the passenger side alone since it was not broke. Note: my car was purchased with the torsion springs disconnected, drivers side mounting device broke in two due to binding and cane left in trunk to support lid. From my research, the mounting devices on my car were not original and had been replaced sometime in the past. They had about a 2-1/2" mounting base and were screwed to vertical wall of engine compartment with three sheet metal screws.

After connecting my torsion springs, the passenger side of trunk was lifting about 1/4". What I found was the mounting device trunk hinge attaches to was actually flexing, allowing pin/roller to move upward. My roller is close to end of pin when trunk is closed and flex in bracket does permit trunk to sit higher than it should. There is also some binding that occurs with passenger side hinge with all this flexing. I've researched manuals and have all the right hardware installed, ie washers, wavy washer, lock washer etc.. and also stripped trunk hinges to bare metal, repainted and lubed necessary parts prior to installation.

Kind of disasappointed after going to the trouble of buying new rollers, roller mounting hardware, hinge brackets, having a custom tool fabricated to safely move torsion bars (aka.....cooley tool) and having the drivers side bracket welded on. Not to mention paying a tow truck to take my car to and from welding shop.

I'm in the air about replacing the passenger side bracket since my drivetrain is now installed and running, and engine bay paint is complete........this does limit work space now and have considered using pelicans trunk shocks to resolve the problem.

It has been suggested by another teener to disconnect the torsion spring that is giving me problems since the other one will still hold trunk in the up position. Have not tried that one yet but just might in the next day or so.

Hope some of this helps.

John

[mostrow]

Thanks Jon and John.

I was thinking about the concept of allowing only one side to do the lifting of the whole trunk. I wonder if you're asking for trouble by allowing the load of the powerful trunk spring to be unevenly distributed. Seems like I've seen a lot of 914s with problems like this, e.g. missing rollers, etc.

FWIW John, my trunk sits level, but still wants to "throw" the passenger roller. The end of the pin should just be threaded to allow a nut or something like that, shouldn't it?

I bought the rollers and have been hesitant to give up on the original setup. However I know I'm going to hit a bump one of these days and hear a loud THWACK. When that happens, I may be taking Jon's advice and switching to the little gas struts.

Any tricks for installing the gas trunk springs?

[Will98D]

No, the end of the pin the roller sits on is not threaded, and it's probably bent upwards a bit which is making the roller move out to the end. BTW, use a wooden dowel or something to push it back, you'd hate to get your finger snapped by that torsion spring if it lets go. If straightening the pin doesn't work, you could probably tack weld a washer on the end if you have the metal roller, or drill/tap the end of the pin with a small screw and then put a washer on to hold it in place, or go with the gas support kit as others suggested. I'm dinking around fixing mine but now wish I had gone the gas-support route.

[Kevin Powers]

if you are using the plastic type (another p f-up), take those pieces of crap and throw them in the garbage.they can't take the preasure of the steel spring and the post, it wallows out center hole and they "walk off". i switched to the brass type and never had another problem.drilling holes in the car, i hate it, hard to undo.

kevin

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

One note on the trunk hinge brackets, courtesy of Craig from Camp914--

Check the threaded part of the bracket that the pivot threads into. It seems to only be spot welded, and sometimes the welds have broken after the bracket was in the car for a bit. It is not a bad idea to weld them in more securely.

--DD