Strut Tower Brace Design Revisited

[George Sidman]

Bernie:     It appears there is some confusion and/or 
disagreement surrounding what the tower is doing, what the 
strut is doing, how they share dampening through the rubber, 
etc. Bottom line is, your idea to tie the strut tops 
together does produce beneficial results, to which a number 
of us can gratefully attest.

My point is that the loading on the brace is dynamic, not 
static, and the generally accepted physics principal that 
for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction 
tells me that the strut cannot be loaded without there being 
an unloading moment. In other words, pressure pushing the 
towers apart. That back and forth movement, however slight, 
is what introduces metal fatigue. The solidly connected bar 
prevents that for the strut, and helps reduce the effect of 
whatever the springs are doing to the towers. I am hoping 
that the solid brace reduces those stresses enough to keep 
the wheels parallel and the towers from getting romantic. 
And it all appears to work.

Cost wise - total was $110, and a bargain for what it does.
Weight wise - I could diet for a few days and make up the 
difference.

Clearly, there is no definitive answer, short of dusting of 
my long forgotten structural engineering books and working 
out the numbers. Anyway, we do this because it's fun and how 
else do we entertain list members?
-- 
GEORGE SIDMAN, Chairman
sidman at webloq.com
Monterey, California
831 760-0168