Door torsion bar adjustment

[Doive]

Does anyone know any specialists in Scotland who could tackle our driver's side torsion bar? New struts all round, but the door is becoming increasingly reluctant to stay fully opened. Passenger side lifts unaided to full height, while driver side needs assisted from about half opened.

[Chris Williams]

Before you start to adjust it does it work OK in warmer weather? A lot of these struts are fine when it's warm but don't work as well when cold.
Chris

[jwrayth]

I'm not aware of anyone up this end of the country I'm afraid What gas struts are you using? I found the DMC-EU ones too strong for my doors so if you're using some other brand I can always send you up a spare one of Eds to try out? It has literally been used twice and I hated it as it shoots the door up too fast.

[ROBLAMROCK]

You should check the torsion bar by removing gas strut and see how high the door sits above the sill on its own. Should be around 3 or 4 inches.  If the door does this then your gas struts are bad and you don't need to adjust torsion bar.
Robert

[Chris Williams]

SpecialT's Auto's gas struts have a very good reputation I have used them on a couple of peoples cars (inc my own) and they are really good. However they don't work so well in the cooler months but are fine in the warmer weather (well the odd day we get!)
Chris

[Doive]

(22 Feb 2016, 11:13)jwrayth Wrote: What gas struts are you using? I found the DMC-EU ones too strong for my doors so if you're using some other brand I can always send you up a spare one of Eds to try out? It has literally been used twice and I hated it as it shoots the door up too fast.

Thanks for the offer James, much appreciated. It's a full set, brand new, of Ed's struts I have fitted. I agree, the passenger door flies up at quite a rate, and they are very lively for the hood & louvre panel as well. But the driver door doesn't want to know. Swapped the struts between doors with the same results.

With the strut removed from the door, it closes almost completely, so I'm guessing the torsion bar either needs re-torsioned or replaced. The strut does tend to work better in warmer weather, but the identical passenger side unit is behaving quite happily.

Messing around with torsion bars gives me The Fear.

[Stuart Rees]

Ideally do a torsion bar adjustment with someone who's done it before. For the first time, I had one friend hold the door a little more vertical than the door usually goes, another friend to hold the tension of the bar and that left me to concentrate taking the 2 bolts out holding the toothed bracket. One notch on the bracket should be enough to make it 'hang' like the other door.