My torque damper bracket broke

by **TMMK Toy** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 7:53 pm

Well it's happened to me. I thought I was immune to it but the bracket for my torque damper broke. Not sure when it happened either. Just happened to notice it in the engine bay today when doing brakes that the damper was just hanging to the side. So my buddy is gonna take the broken bracket to a welder his work deals with and see if he can make a stronger bracket out of a higher quality metal. Didn't someone on here say they were working on such a thing? Anyway, I got to take it easy for prob. a week with my driving and hopefully it'll warm up by Wednesday that I can drive the eight six until the new bracket is made.

by **ASG14** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:00 pm

Yes, I talked about it.......I need to find someone to weld them for me. I have like 13 of the damn brackets just sitting here.

by **TMMK Toy** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:05 pm

You bracket whore, you. lol. Hopefully this guy can do it and have it done for me by the weekend.

by **Chinky420** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:36 pm

join the club

by **TxBmbleBee** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:47 pm

can someone take a pic so i can see what yall are talking about.

by **SleeperSolara** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:49 pm

TxBmbleBee wrote:can someone take a pic so i can see what yall are talking about.

It's the bracket for the torque rod mounts too.

by **TxBmbleBee** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:58 pm

thats what i figured, just wanted to be sure

by **ASG14** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 9:06 pm

I have a braken one downstaires. I'll post poics tomorrow after work.

by **TMMK Toy** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 8:38 am

I guess my concern is what kind of harm have I been doing driving it like this? I dont know how long it's been broken. Last time I looked in my engine bay was probably January to change oil and it was fine then. I'm thinking the major harm I'm doing is more stress on my engine mounts. I autoxed two weekends ago and noticed in a pic someone took how much nosedive my car was exhibiting on braking, so I'm thinking it maybe has also caused the suspension to work harder. Anyway, hopefully nothing major will fail because of this

by **ASG14** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 4:22 pm

It;s a secondary mount, so chances are nothing is harmed. It would also have nothing to do with the suspension. There is nothing to worry about. At worst, it would have just put more stress on the other mounts, mainly the dogbone.

Your fine.

by **TMMK Toy** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 10:03 pm

Thank you, ASG. You are the man and on your way to being the Yoda of SolaraGuy

by **ASG14** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:23 am

^ LOL! I think Gabe (TRD4Life) has me way beat on that!

by **Chinky420** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 9:05 am

yeah, it's a secondary mount.....obviously, if there was supposed to be NO MOTION at that mount point, the OEM tranny rod wouldn't have been a gas shock.

just lay off the accelerator until it gets fixed. you're tranny will be wobbling a little bit more, but just so long as you get it fixed soon, you should be able to baby the gas pedal around town.

by **TMMK Toy** » Wed Apr 08, 2009 9:36 am

Ya, Ive been nursing the throttle for the most part and I always rev match when downshifting so not to cause excess shock and engine movement and save my synchros. Weather is finally not so crappy now so I'm gonna try to drive the eight six until saturday.

Unfortunately, the guy my buddy took the bracket too said he didnt want to fool with welding a replacement. So my buddy welded the stock one back together and said he ran a bead around the break to reinforce it. Still prob. will break again at some point. I think we really need to find someone to make us stronger brackets to remedy this problem. Who will be our champion?

by **Chinky420** » Wed Apr 08, 2009 10:06 am

the one on my lara right now is a rewelded broken one, and it's held up for over a year now (it broke after only a few months after installing the tq rod).

i'd say it should be alright, at least as a temporary bracket....just make sure to adjust the tq rod height, so as to have less stress on the bracket (i adjusted mine so that the bushings on the tq rod were hugging the bracket before i tightened down the nuts, ergo, i just dampered the bracket to stay in the place it is at, when the car is off)

i think the bracket is good as it is, i just think that improper installation will cause the bracket to fail due to extra (excessive) stress....i say this because when i first installed my tq rod, i went ahead and screwed the bottom bushing upwards, to kinda prop up the bracket (figured i could tighten out more vibration that way). well, i WAS able to tighten out the extra vibration, but it was at the expense of the bracket. so, when i did the repair/reinstall, i didn't get fancy, i just threw it back on, and it hasn't had any problems since.

My torque damper bracket broke

My torque damper bracket broke

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