Anyone seen this before ?

[Bobble]

Coming back from visiting my dad and drove over a level crossing which was not that level ( why do they call them that ? ) and a horrible clunk and the car dipped to one side anyway pulled over and looked underneath and broken torsion bar so drove home very slowly and parked up ready to replace it tomorrow.

 

[Cornish4]

Blimey Bobble, it's not that you would get any warning. Food for thought.

 

[reidalpine]

could it be time for weight-watchers Bobble ? -Reid.

 

[malcolm]

Could you post a close up of the fracture? A simple torsional fracture would normally look like a spiral. From a distance it looks like the torsion bar has cracked half way through in a straight line (bending fatigue) - is that part of the crack rusty? Then maybe the remainder failed in a spiral because the remaining section was overloaded.

 

[Lobster]

Yep but on a Kangoo rather than an R4. Not ideal when you are 350 miles from home either...

 

[harbourseal]

Heard about it from one of the dutch forum members. He used the torsion bar as aground for welding on the floor of his car. After that the bar just snapped like a twig when he went trough a small pothole.
Hope that it never happens to me.
I do hope you are okay except for a bruised ego.

 

[JonathanT]

My first car (that actually went ) was s Morris Minor. It had torsion bars on the front and they terminated below the front seats. On one occasion I went over an unlevel level crossing and the cranked securing end came up through the floor and through my seat. Fortunately it did less damage to my bottom !

 

[Bobble]

Not quite ready for weight-watchers yet Reid

Did'nt really look at it closely but on closer inspection it looks like it has been partly cracked for quite some time as there is rust on part of it so it was inevitable eventually, quite lucky it did'nt go when we went to Orkney loaded with camping gear.

Well all done and did'nt take as long as i thought but checked the other side at the same time and no visible marks and cracks it's a good thing it happened now as i will be advertising soon and would feel bad after if it happened to the new owner

 

[SJC400]

Blimey Bobble, no, never seen that before, good pics though!

 

[angel]

That's interesting, I have never seen it happen on an R4, although older Renault mechanics claim that torsion bar breakege occured as a result of too high a ride height/preload setting.
I see that the bar is lacking the rubber protection sleeve, it's rather critical because on a torsion bar the highest stress appears on the outer surface, and it takes only a sharp hit from, say, a small stone in order to fracture it and consequently make it break.