Trunnion pedantry, forsooth (no frrrloading content)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Under the heading "rear T-bar bushings" Modelle writes "Not sure if the whole
rear-axle locating member is called a trunion, or if that term is reserved for
just the connecting point at the top of the differential. In any case, this
posting is a question about the side supports, where the T-bar fastens to the
side rails with two rubber bushings." Russ Neely, in his reply, writes "I
always call the whole T bar thing a trunnion. Guess I should look up trunnion
in the dictionary."

That will probably confuse things further; at least my desk dictionary says a
trunnion is "a pin or pivot, especially either of the two opposite gudgeons on
which a cannon is swiveled", derived from the French 'trognon'. It doesn't
seem to be a native Italian word; the English->Italian Cassell's gives
'orecchione' as the Italian word for the English 'trunnion'.

HOWEVER we may be concerned more with proper Alfa-speak than with strictly
correct Italian. As usual, most of my books are at the other house, but all of
the 105 1600 parts books I have here call the whole upper locating link a
'trunnion', as does the Autopress aftermarket shop manual for the 105 cars,
which is ostensibly based on factory manuals.

CONTRARILY all of the 1750 and 2000 105-115 parts books I have here, which
unlike the 1600 parts books are polyglot, call it a 'T-arm' in English,
'Triangolo Superiore' (upper triangle) in Italian, 'Bras superiore de rection'
in French, 'Reaktionsdreieck' in German, 'Triangulo superior' is Spanish.

What nobody but Modelle, Russ, and probably most of the rest of us call it is
'T-bar'. 'T-bar' is widely used as an abbreviation for Torsion bar, and Alfa
did use rear (but not front) torsion bars on all of the 6C 2300B, 8C 2900, and
6C 2500 cars, as well as on some competition cars and prototypes, so casual
talk about rear T-bars could be confusing.

I would suggest that 'trunnion' is very respectable term for English-speakers
who respect established Alfa English-language conventions, 'T-arm' is equally
respectable traditional usage for the post-1968 car owners, as well as being a
reasonably accurate formal description, and that 'T-bar' is at best
unnecessarily ambiguous, particularly as there is nothing about it which could
be considered a bar. But in the end semanticists tell us that words mean what
the user means them to mean, and that there is no harm so long as the
listener/reader knows what is meant. Call it what you will, and enjoy fixing
the bloody buggers-

Cheers

John H.
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