Please identify this part

[Ryan S.]

I think it came from my D. I fount it on the windshield. I am guessing this came from one of the door. Larger part is rubbery but other one is a hard plastic.
Thanks in advance

15788

[DrJeff]

I had one fall off my inner door panel when I was working the doors. I believe it is part of the door vent mechanism.

[sdg3205]

Yup.

[Ryan S.]

Thanks. My new struts are working too well and shaking things up. Hope I can put it back in.

[David T]

That is the little "door" that opens and closes off the airflow. The rubber gets sandwiched between two pieces of hard plastic.
David Teitelbaum

[Rich]

...My new struts are working too well and shaking things up...

Side-thread here about the door struts/operation;

Interesting choice of words there. And indicative of typical "previous-owner quick-fix goof-up" problems you'll want to address at some point as a new D owner. Lift struts cannot really work too well - am sure you meant that as a joke and it does make the point. Struts can work as they should when new and as they do during their useful life, they can naturally change load-lift performance with temperature and they can and will lose their load-lift capability over the years.

Quite often a D going to a new owner will show this sign of some previous owner having "solved" a door droop problem by upping the door torsion bar pre-load instead of popping in new door struts. Then when the new owner does replace the struts (the originally-correct and only correct thing that needs to be done when doors droop with correctly-set torsion bars) the door will bounce at the top of the travel. The door will also need extra force to close. Bouncing can cause problems with the lower strut attachment. High door-closing force is at least an annoyance. Both of these problems will be worse when you get summer heat because the struts will naturally deliver more lift force. That is, if the doors are bouncing in your winter weather they will surely bounce a lot more come summer.

The soft-lift struts can arrest some of the bounce. They cannot solve the high closing force problem.

Note: Torquing up a door to solve door droop is a losing proposition. It can fix the problem for a year or two because the struts have lost some of their gas. Later the bar "needs" more torque to lift the doors when more strut gas is lost. At some point the bars are doing almost all of the lifting - something they do not do well and were never designed to do. And somebody has had to make all those difficult bar adjustments.

Over-torqued doors exacerbate several worst-case failure modes - (a) lifting or delamination of the roof box, (b) broken torsion bars - maybe, and (c) the aforementioned damage to the door strut mount. All covered in other threads.

You may want to look at adjusting the door torque back so it works nicely with your new struts. Best done at >60deg F. Set the torsion bars correctly and it will be the last time you'll touch them. Plan to buy new struts from time to time.

[jawn101]

Some local Sacramento owners have the torsion bar adjustment rig all made up already, we should do another tech day!

[Ryan S.]

Rich,
Thanks for another helpful advice. I ended up taking out the new door struts and put old ones back on. Too much bouncing even in a cold weather. I will just wait until the next tech day.

[tomcatf14g]

got a question as a new d owner. my passanger door is difficult to open. not so much any bouncing once its open but just hard to lift. does my torsion bar need adjustment or do i need to replace the lift. my driver side door works perfectly. just the right side im having the issue. it seems to be lined up fine and all. and it does stay in postion when opened. just a pain to get to tht point

[deloumis]

got a question as a new d owner. my passanger door is difficult to open. not so much any bouncing once its open but just hard to lift. does my torsion bar need adjustment or do i need to replace the lift. my driver side door works perfectly. just the right side im having the issue. it seems to be lined up fine and all. and it does stay in postion when opened. just a pain to get to tht point

Try switching your struts from the other side see what it does. If your driver side is working good get that strut and pop it onto the passenger side and see what it does.

[tomcatf14g]

Thanks ill try tht. So u think its probably just the strut then?

[Rich]

Thanks ill try tht. So u think its probably just the strut then?

Agreeing with suggested test from deloumis. Swap the struts. Takes all of 3 minutes after you prop the doors up. The other test is just to buy and install new struts, then go from there. You'll need them sooner or later...

The struts wear out, eventually losing some of their gas charge and lifting power. The torsion bars don't wear out (unless they break). It takes BOTH components in good condition for the doors to open as designed. Never consider a door torsion bar tightening episode without known good lift struts and warm (>60degF) conditions.

[jawn101]

Agreeing with suggested test from deloumis. Swap the struts. Takes all of 3 minutes after you prop the doors up. The other test is just to buy and install new struts, then go from there. You'll need them sooner or later...

The struts wear out, eventually losing some of their gas charge and lifting power. The torsion bars don't wear out (unless they break). It takes BOTH components in good condition for the doors to open as designed. Never consider a door torsion bar tightening episode without known good lift struts and warm (>60degF) conditions.

+1 on not adjusting the torsion bars in the cold, and also be sure to take into consideration the fact that your struts may not perform as well as they should in the current colder temperatures here. My doors are adjusted to be nearly perfect in our 90-110 degree summers but tend to be a little droopy when I first open them on a 30 degree morning. So you might hold off on any major door rejiggering until it warms back up :)

[tomcatf14g]

Thanks for all the advice. Ill try swapping struts this weekend and see if it improves. If tht ddoesn't solve the problem ill just get it looked at. Don't know enough about these yet to attempt any kind of major repair lol.

[Jonathan]

Try switching your struts from the other side see what it does. If your driver side is working good get that strut and pop it onto the passenger side and see what it does.

Has anyone ever seen a noticeable difference in strut performance based on whether they are installed pointing up versus down? (Meaning which end you connect with the gas cylinder portion versus the protruding shaft end).

[Rich]

Has anyone ever seen a noticeable difference in strut performance based on whether they are installed pointing up versus down? (Meaning which end you connect with the gas cylinder portion versus the protruding shaft end).

Good question.

Rod end is normally on the body pivot and the cylinder end is on the door pivot. Have not tried reversing them from the standard (rod-down) position - no plans to try it, so no direct answer to your question.

Advice: the following is from a gas strut mfgr's page, "Standard gas springs should always be mounted rod down to prevent premature seal failure and in addition to provide end of stroke damping." And, yes, by "gas springs" they meant "lift struts", the kind we use on our doors. http://www.camloc.com/Default.aspx/8

[DMCMW Dave]

Advice: the following is from a gas strut mfgr's page, "Standard gas springs should always be mounted rod down to prevent premature seal failure and in addition to provide end of stroke damping." And, yes, by "gas springs" they meant "lift struts", the kind we use on our doors. http://www.camloc.com/Default.aspx/8

I've seen no functional difference, and have always heard the same theory as Rich quotes. We install them so that at the "normal" position (i.e. door/louver/hood closed) the end of the cylinder that the rod comes out of is lower. Which is the same as when open, other than the louver.

[tomcatf14g]

so i took the advice you guys gave and switched the struts. it fixed the problem. so i ordered in 2 new ones thru my work. Thanks again for the advice.

[Ryan S.]

I found this next to my spare tire. Do you know what this is for??? Thanks

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8508/8485119974_58757903f8.jpg

[jawn101]

I found this next to my spare tire. Do you know what this is for??? Thanks

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8508/8485119974_58757903f8.jpg

Front license plate bracket. Toss it in a corner of your garage and forget it exists.

[sdg3205]

Front license plate bracket?

[Ryan S.]

Front license plate bracket. Toss it in a corner of your garage and forget it exists.

LOL:hysterical:

[Jonathan]

Front license plate bracket. Toss it in a corner of your garage and forget it exists.

Or sell it to someone in Ontario or another province/state that you need a front license plate in :)

[David T]

To use that bracket you have to drill 2 holes in the front facia to attach it to the facia and then the plate to it. The venders now sell an aftermarket bracket that uses existing bolts so you do not have to drill the facia anymore. In many places the car is old enough that even if a front plate is required, old cars are exempt. Check your local licensing authority.
David Teitelbaum

[sdg3205]

Or sell it to someone in Ontario or another province/state that you need a front license plate in :)

Jonathan,

We need front plates as well in BC but I've gone plateless there for 3 years!

Normal cars seem to get busted but classics seem to get overlooked because cops don't know for certain if drilling holes into the bumpers counts as damage to a classic. This is all assuming you have collector plates of course, which means you're not allowed to "alter" the car.

[Jonathan]

Jonathan,

We need front plates as well in BC but I've gone plateless there for 3 years!

Normal cars seem to get busted but classics seem to get overlooked because cops don't know for certain if drilling holes into the bumpers counts as damage to a classic. This is all assuming you have collector plates of course, which means you're not allowed to "alter" the car.

Hey Dave,

Neat. I wasn't sure which way it worked in BC. I know Alberta has no front plates, yet in Ontario, basically all cars have front and rear plates (except farm trucks or something like that).

My car came with a front mounting bracket already attached and I guess I never looked close enough to see whether it was drilled into the fascia or not. I like the personalized plates I got, so showing them on front and back was okay with me. I see other cars without the front plate and it does look slick, much like many other cars like Corvettes look nicer without the front plate. There are a couple owners here in Ontario too who choose to go front plateless.

This could get off topic in a hurry, but with many of these sorts of things in life, I generally choose to follow the rules or laws set out for us. This is not exclusive to just cars, but applies to paying taxes, driving habits, taking tests, or waiting your turn for things. We all get to choose which laws we want to follow, which I suppose is part of the problem. Pay the consequences if you will, if there even is a consequence. I feel that if we had people in the world choosing to follow more of the rules or laws already in place, the world might be a better place to live in. Not saying I don't object to some rules which seem silly, but there are many where the average person is going to choose what is best for him and not the whole, and that is likely the biggest challenge, and the one least likely to change. Not if you're from Planet Vulcan though I suppose :)