Re: Front Axle Troubles (was: RE: [T3] Engine started! As did new problems...)

[Chris J Valade <redyouth@juno.com>]

Steven, Keith, Jim, et. al.

        Well, it seems its been decided: I will do a complete inspection
and repair of the front end...once I can back the car up into the garage,
i.e. a flat space.  I assume I shouldn't have any problems slowly backing
it up and keeping the wheels straight, right?  We had moved the car from
the street to the driveway (had to turn it 90 degrees) and had no
problems, the engine may have been completely cold, but I don't see why
the engine being on or not should affect moving the car about 15 feet in
a straight line at a slow pace.
        Since I'm betting I will need an assistant for at least some of
this work, should I have the mechanic I know help me out?  Would his
opinion be much more sound and reliable on the front axle as opposed to
the engine, or should I treat it the same for this portion of the car as
well?
        I'm sure it broke because the tower pulled the car off of the
jack and jack stand that were under the front left side.  When I was
picturing this act of genius again I realized how the torsion bar could
have easily been broke: since the right wheel is already at an odd angle,
taking more weight from a different angle with the left side jacked up,
when the car dropped, the right wheel stayed in the position it was while
the rest of the front end shifted, which would have resulted in the
torsion bar being stretched a significant distance with a large portion
of the car's weight in a very short period of time.  Although, I'm
willing to bet that the rubber stops not being there had weakened the bar
at least a little before hand.
        I cannot see any of the torsion bar, but instead I can see about
2" of the torsion arm which is usually inside of the axle beam--I believe
what I am describing is that the torsion arm is about 2" out of the
splines of the torsion bar, but I'm not sure if that makes any sense
since I may be misunderstanding what the Bentley is saying.  Does that
make more sense?
        Thanks everyone, and I'm sure you can expect more questions when
I get to the point of working on the front end!

Sincerely,
Christopher J. Valade

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