Torque bar snapped!

[SilverBullet]

Any of the possibilities could have caused the failure, but its about more that a year and half before the failure since the installation. AS I'm out of town now, and according to my mechanic, he said that looking at the cross-section of the bar, 2 different shear marks, meaning that an earlier hairline crack/fracture might have been the start of the failure and was at the thread end. Anyway its been welded back and going into the car.

[MattKab]

Sorry to hear the Beetle is sick.

Do you have a close up pic of the break? That will tell how and why it failed. There is a few scenarios that can be pin-pointed. Fracture mechanics was one of my hot subjects at University.

I've not seen a 'bolt-on Kafer-bar' set up yet that impresses me, even the new Bugpack piece looks medioka. The CSP looks alright, if it wasn't for the cantilever tabs, which result in improper triangulation. I don't believe this'll be the first failure of this type when using monoball. Are you concerned about the amount of strain you're seeing? It sounds like a tensile fatigue failure brought on by flexing of the rest of the car, not any of the 3 torque bar links. I would have the diagonals copied in steel.

Matt

[SilverBullet]

Ok here is the fault we found, we most certain of it, the welded tabs are not inline with each other thus causing a twisting force/stress on the bar, thus it snapped! Got the bar welded back anf will have to reweld the tabs.