205 gti torsion bars

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neilc

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I have noticed that my May 89 gti has smaller rear torsion bars than the other one I have that was built February 1990. Anyone out there have any information on torsion bars and rear arb found on 205 GTI
 
Maybe it has an Si rear beam fitted? Is the colour black not yellow?
 
The ones on the car have 3 pairs of white stripes and 2 pairs of green stripes where as the wreck I have has 3 pairs of white stripes and 2 pairs of yellow stripes. The wreck has the larger torsion bars. The bars are painted black in both cars.
 
Hi Neil,
Graham is referring to the beam main tube colour.
GTI: yellow painted main tube and larger diameter (some do get painted black at some point in their life)
Si: black painted main tube and slightly smaller in diameter.
Someone may have replaced the complete beam assembly on one car with an Si beam assembly which would explain why the other components, torsion and ARB are different.
I did post main tube diameters for someone else a while ago for GTI and Si that I had, you could do a search.
cheers
Craig.
 
I dread Grahams post the one I drive has a black tube and the damaged gti has a yellow tube. So maybe that explains a few things
 
Hello Graham and Craig.
I checked the yellow tube it is approx. 65mm the black one is 60mm approx. at the widest point.
 
All GTi torsion bars are DIA 18.6mm, from memory.
 
Here is a si rear beam and bars

Torsion bars18.6mm
ARB 16mm.
 

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The markings are as I removed it but I read somewhere the amount of strips determines left from right. If you have no markings for some reason there are notches on the end of the bars if you look closely which is probley what the factory used to identify bars LH or RH?
 
so does that mean the only difference between si and gti rear bars is the ARB? Both version run 18.6mm torsion bars, si has a 16mm ARB and the gti has a 19mm ARB?

Neilc what size bars did your cars have?
 
I thought the Si bars were just slightly smaller. ARB is biggest difference in any case.
 
The measurements I have made are as follows:

Yellow Beam 205 GTI ARB 19mm Torsion Bars 19mm
Black beam GTI now know it is a SI beam: Torsion Bars 18.3 mm I have an SI ARB here it is 16.2mm.
 
neilc said:
The measurements I have made are as follows:

Yellow Beam 205 GTI ARB 19mm Torsion Bars 19mm
Black beam GTI now know it is a SI beam: Torsion Bars 18.3 mm I have an SI ARB here it is 16.2mm.
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Nice work, looks like your mystery has been solved... now what to do? what's their internal condition like?
 
According to the parts CD, there were three different size torsion bars, 18.1, 18.5 and 18.9. No idea whether that applies to either Si or GTi. Similarly for arbs, 14, 16 and 19mm.
 
Craig from a visual inspection the beam trailing arms seem ok but not sure what to look for? and do you test if the arm bearings are ok?
 
Look to see if the needle rollers are still intact, have not gone to dust etc and do not leave marks on the corresponding surfaces. Outer bearings go, inners do not seem to in my experience. Call to discuss?
 
neilc said:
Craig from a visual inspection the beam trailing arms seem ok but not sure what to look for? and do you test if the arm bearings are ok?
Click to expand...

Hi Neil,
I've been offline a bit lately, but looks like you've gotten lots of good advise both here and your other post. I hope your main beam tube turns out to be ok. I suppose the next question would be if you would do the work yourself or need to get it done.
I've also got an Si beam in one of my GTIs but it has the correct bars in it.
cheers
Craig.
 
I plan to do it myself probably after the school holidays, I will provide an update on the forum of my findings.
 
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