Hey Chris, Out of curiosity, did any of the previous front bars work at all or were they so far off as to be completely useless? Got a stack of them with no idea what to do with other than throw them out. Micah
Micah: The 2nd front bar with the verticle ends will work, but you will have to purchase 3/8" fine thread bolts to attach to the heim joints. If you check out my gallery, you will see this set up, you may have to elongate the holes on the frame bracket too, also in the gallery. When I finally got mine all set up, it worked great! I believe Chris used it on his set up too with good results. The 1st front bar is basically useless, as ends are horizontal and way too close to the frame rail...... For those of you who still have the 2nd bar, if you get the correct end link bolts, you can sell and recoup some of your costs........been so long, but I will crawl under the car and get the correct length of bolt required along with what parts to use that came in the hardware kit to make that bar usable.... now if any of you want to give the 2nd bar away, along with the heim joints, frame brackets and bushings, I would be interested! although shipping would be a pain....... David
David, That’s good to know! I had the same issue with the bolt when I installed the adjustable rear bar. if you have any more specifics on the bolt length or anything else to get this to work, please let me know. Chris, I'm using the same Total Control front end as you but without the drop spindle. Anything I need to be aware of? Why was this all screwed up again? Seems like there may not have really been an issue with the adjustable bar. I never tried it because my car is in pieces. Thanks, Micah
watch your clearance between the sway bar and the strut rod. if you lower your car enough you will find that they try to occupy the same space. In this photo you can see where the old 7/8" bar had been scraping. Drop spindles fixed this problem for me. Also... If you plan to use one of the adjustable bars, make sure you pay attention to how much room is available between the sway bar end and the coil over. On the adjustable bar I did use, I used the inner most hole and cut off the other 2 so that it would not come into contact with the C/O under compression. All of these bars are usable just not in the manner they were requested. This should have been a bolt on part with 3 usable endlink locations. I still dont understand how they couldnt get that concept down but.... Even the first bar, with a little creativity can be made usable.
Micah: Here is what I used for the 2nd bar: 2 - 3/8" fine thread x 3 3/4" long bolts, grade 5 is good enough. 2 - 3/8" fine thread jam nuts, these are thinner than regular version, but you can still use a regular nut. 2 - 3/8" flat washers. parts from the heim hardware kit: 4 - Cup washers, depending on what was in your kit, you may have to drill out the center hole from 5/16" to 3/8", I had 4 already in my kit....... 4 - End link bushings. 2 - Plated sleeves, 1" long (may have to shorten for your set up). Assembly: - with bolt head on bottom, cup washer, bushing and pass through end link hole on lower control arm. - bushing, cup washer, sleeve, flat washer and jam nut. - attach the heim joint. - attach to the center hole on vertical end of the bar. - there should be a few threads showing between the heim/jam nut for adjustment, if not then you may have to cut/shorten the sleeve. - can view photo's in my gallery showing placement of heim hardware. This is for stock OEM type lower control arms etc., so using aftermarket LCA's may require different length bolts? This is what I used on my OEM stock arm set up and it worked and performed great! David
David, Thanks for taking the time to lay it all out. It does not look much different that what I had to do with the rear bar: http://mmb.maverick.to/showpost.php?p=964106&postcount=255 Now, I just have to see if the TC front suspension will be a problem. Thanks, Micah
Hey, no problem! Maybe this will be helpful for those who already have the bar, extra cost of hardware is cheap enough and maybe can resell to other members who are interested or outside the forum, can recoup some of the original cost to offset all the hassles we been through. I remember way back in the beginning of the post about John mentioning something about a custom sway bar for a Ferrari they been working on for months, I wonder how that went......
I installed the third bar today. It did bolt right up. The drain plug for the aftermarket oil pan is really close and also the struck rod (Chris mentioned).
Chris, what brand drop spindles did you use? I believe I'm going to have a problem with this bar and the strut rod.
Soooo... are we done yet? lol Too busy to mock my bar up and I was hoping a few guys who've installed it on stock suspensions would chime in to make me feel more at ease with just packing it away and then expecting the install to go well months down the road.
Mines is installed. It went well. Just don't tighten all the bolts up until you get things lined up right. I also had to make the bolt holes slightly longer for things to line up. Everything fits well considering I have a lot of aftermarket parts.
