My dad recently noticed transmission fluid leaking under the transfer case in his brand new '02 X (800miles). So he brought it in for inspection and the first thing they (the dealer) did was lifting vehicle using the torsion bar as contact point. Luckily we were there to point it out. So anyways, they said they have to change out the seals and whatnot. If they can't even use the jack properly, can I even trust them to work on the entire transmission assembly? What should I do?

there is nothing wrong about lifting a truck by its T bar
its not recomended , but its not a life threatening

i had my X hanging on the lift by a t-bar on one side , and there is no long term damage ( over 6 month )

we did put couple rugs there, just so the lift would not scratch t-bars ( but with offroading, they are scratched anyway )

I disagree, the torsion bar should not be allowed to bear anywhere near that kind of load.

Brent

I trusted my mechanic, ( who i goto for over 6 years ), and as i sad i dont see any abnormality with my truck (yet )

It sounds like he's a relative.

You should never, ever support a vehicle by a torsion bar.

It's perfectly fine to lift a truck on the t-bar, if you are a live on the edge, dare devil or idiot. If you break a t-bar under load it would be a very bad thing. Find a new dealership.

Ian : relative? not at all ... just a person who knows what he is doing

and if you need to do something to the frame, you dont have a choice exsept lift it by a t-bar

Can you give us an example of such a situation. I can't think of one. I'd hate to see someone post a picture of you laying on the floor with a piece of spring steel sticking out of the side of your head. I'm guessing your mechanic thinks it's OK to air up split rim tires without a cage too. I personaly watched a guy die doing that. Wasn't much fun.

Probably the same rice-boy outfit that's tweaking his computer...

Brent

You need to find someone who really knows what he's doing explain to the guy who doesn't know what he's doing, what he's doing wrong, before he drops a 4000 lb truck on his head.

I truly cannot imagine lifting a truck by the torsion bar. The rotational force stored in one of those bars is tremendous.

I had the misfortune of having a T-bar aduster bolt give way when adjusting the bar a bit. It sounded like a gunshot when those threads gave way on the bolt, and the resulting force tore a hole in the palm of my hand about an inch wide. As well as blowing the socket off of the breaker bar I was using, firing it into the concrete garage floor about 6 inches from my head, taking a chunk out of the concrete floor, before flying into and denting the metal garage door about fifteen feet away.

There is way too much energy in those bars to subject them to adverse situations.

EDIT: And I will add....this all happened with the X on jackstands, and the upper A-arm at full droop, resting on the upper bumpstop. The force released in this incident was not vehicle-weight related....simply the result of the energy stored in the bar relative to its place in the torsional suspension environment.

Xterrian : some things should be left unsad

OffroadX: before you talk about it, why dont you shut your trap, and think... do you know who reprogramed my computer ? NO you dont... do you know who i goto to fix my truck ? no you dont.. so shut the f*ck up man!

Ian: whats your qualification in this ?
are you a mechanic who went to school ? or did you learn it in the programing school ? (btw.. do you have atleast highschool diploma ? )

BTW who ever will say that reprograming Xterra computer is IMPOCIBLE... better shut up , and go to a reputable shop... its pocible to reprogram Xterra computer... i had it done... and the check engine light that some of you heard about is now solved... i have extra HP. and Tork at the back wheels

I agree with your statement about me O'. That is why I warn you against this. I want to remain unsad and hearing that you or someone else died for nothing would make me sad.

Common sense and a knowledge of mechanical design, physics and mathmetics, things you and your mechanic do not appear to possess.

Take your unsafe suggestions off this board, or you can join the other morons who no longer post here.

Wow olegkha you are not one to be giving Ian shit about having a highschool diploma. Your spelling is some of the worse I have seen on this board.

But Xman6, how is your Russian ?

English IS my second language, and i am still learning it

Ian: interesting how, when some one post something that you dont agree with , or something offending to you , how easy you ban people
dont you find that just a bit interesting and unfair ?

btw common sence that you mention does tell me that in order to snap a t-bar you would need to give it some rotating force ( crank it too much ) then the stored energy will be higher then the brake point of steel bar, and it will snap
by puting a truck on the lift, and using a t-bar as a lifting point, you are giving ZERO addition rotational forse to the T-bar

am i sugesting that you go ahead and try it ? no... but you should not be saying that its unsafe, if you have ZERO experience with it

I don't ban people for disagreeing with them, I only ban people who are posting completely false, or unsafe information on this board.

Jacking up any vehicle by a torsion bar is fucking stupid.
If you want to say it is safe, and risk your life, fine, just don't do it here.

A torsion bar is a straight coil spring. Deflecting it to the side by using it as a jack point is not something it is designed to handle.

Your mechanic is a fucking moron, don't listen to him.

If I banned you, no one would miss you, trust me.

Well, until you have learned it, could you please at least use a spell checker. My head hurts trying to decipher your posts.

C'mon now, seriously. It's obvious Ian has his issues, but I can't see how you could claim this to be one of them. I think it's unbelievably hard to get banned from this board. Certainly compared to most formal internet discussion boards, this one is by far the hardest to get banned from... and God knows I've tried.

The simple physics of expansion and contraction (forces implied upon a torsion bar as a lift point - the contact point is the point of contraction and the opposite point on the T-bar's circumference is the point of expansion) on a device whose very nature relies on consistency and uniformity for strength can and eventually will result in failure of said device.

Try taking a slinky (or any other simple spring object) and, holding it solid (no gaps in the coils) twist it into the coil pattern, as to imply torsion load into the design. Now simply apply force to the length of the device. If enough force is applied, the coil spring will literally spring out in the opposite direction the force is applied, as a release of the static torsional force implied into its state.

The torsion bar will act the same way, given enough force is applied to it's length, while it is under load. Is the 4500 lb. truck enough force to eventually cause that explosive release of static enegry? I personally don't want to find out.

Oleg, I think you were the one that referred to the place that tweaked your computer as a rice-boy shop. No, of course I don't know if you used the same shop in this case, I was just poking fun at rice-boy shops and implying that lifting by the torsion bar would be just the sort of stupid thing they would do (especially since they never encounter torsion bars on rice-boy cars).

Brent

I think Oleg is looking to win a Darwin Award with this one..

%0

Well, I have Dolenz in my engine, and Nesmith in my transmission!

sorry, sorry, that was awful. Not as bad as Oleg's butchering of English, but close . . .

Damn!

You must be as old as me! Half of the people here have no idea what you just said.