On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 08:11:09AM -0700, Jake Hodges wrote:
> The bar comes with (in my opinion) flimsy U-shaped metal brackets that
> slide over polyurethane bushings. The bushings stick out about 1/8th of an
> inch from the bracket before you tighten them down. I've never installed a
> sway bar before, so while I thought it was bad to have all that extra
> material in there, I just assumed that they had some idea what they were
> doing... There were no instructions with the bar, so I tightened the bolts
> down snug but not too tight.
All that is pretty normal. I think the torque spec for those bolts on
a Miata is like 14 ft-Lbs. Basically enough to touch down on the
mounts with the brackets.
> My car has been pushing in left hand corners more and more, and at the
> Stockton event it made a few deep, loud popping sounds from the front
> right. Last night I pulled the bar out only to find that the bushings were
> bound so tight I couldn't physically rotate it with all my (albeit limited)
> might. The bar had slid all the way over to the driver side of the car so
> that the bend at the passenger side end was up into the bushing. The metal
> U-shaped bracket on the right side was all bent up, and I had to hammer it
> out to make it approximately the shape it had been originally. Worst of
> all, the very complicated end link on the driver side is bent. I had to
> turn it around to get it to line up with the bar again.
>
> Is it common for a sway bar to be allowed to slip side-to-side?
It is common for a sway bar to slip from side to side, if it is
allowed to.
> Does anyone have any experience with fabricating non-crappy sway bar mounts?
You shouldn't need to. What you need is a pair of rings to clamp
around the bar on opposite sides of the bushings so that it can't
slide. I used some screw-type hose clamps with some rubber wrapped
around the bar underneath them. A more professional
looking solution is to use a two piece shaft collar like you can find
here: http://www.staffordmfg.com/index.htm
> How hard should it be to rotate the bar when the end links are
> disconnected? With the "altered" state of my flimsy U-brackets, tightening
> the bolts all the way down leads to that same ultra-bad binding
> condition. The bolts are lightly snugged with thread lock to keep them in
> place for this weekend.
Did you grease the bushings when you installed the bar? Mine gives
some initial resistance after it's been on the car for a while, but
once you start it moving, it moves smoothly. It does take a fair
amount of force to move it, but it sounds like yours really is stuck.
Racing Beat provided some really nasty sticky grease with their
swaybars. I guess it's like that so it won't wash away and you won't
have to re-grease the bushings frequently. Some people have wrapped
the bar with Teflon tape underneath the bushings. I'm not sure how
well that would work with my bushings; they are ridged to retain
grease, and on the old bar the ridges wore through the powder coat
after a year of use. I'm thinking they might wear through Teflon tape
even faster.
As long as the bar doesn't shift or bind, those flimsy bushing clamps
should be just fine. I have a set of fancy Racing Beat buttressed,
powder coated bushing clamps if they'll fit and you want to buy
them... :-)
--
john@idsfa.net John Stimson
http://www.idsfa.net/~john/ HMC Physics '94
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