Torsion bars installed incorrectly?
Vise Grips and a rag. I have done it that way. Sucks but it works.
I'm not saying it doesn't
work. I'm saying its a
REALLY bad idea.
Think about it this way. The shafts of the torsion bars carry the entire load of the front end of your car. Plus any shock/dynamic loads from the road. And, because of the design of the torsion bar system, its a 1:1 relationship. Which means even at a stand still each torsion bar probably carries around 1,000 lbs of load on most A-body's.
Now, if you figure most torsion bars are less than an inch in diameter, that 1/16" deep gouge you just put in the bar with the vise grips becomes significant. No, not every little mark can or will cause a failure, but even small gouges and dings in the main shaft of a torsion bar can be significant and lead to failures down the road. And because of the nature of spring loads, it can be a catastrophic failure.
So, sure, you may be able to remove your torsion bars this way without damaging them. But if you do damage the bars doing it, they're junk at best, and quite literally a time bomb at worst.
