>Every other car I've been around that had a front sway bar, had a couple of
>brackets that captured the front/center part of the bar to the frame. My
>Series II doesn't. It seems that the bar can really flex around the way it
>is, only connecting the two control arms.
>Does anyone else think this is a problem? Anyone put frame brackets in
with
>their replacements? I'm not replacing mine (yet) but I've been wondering?
The sway bar used on the alpine and tiger is very clever. It works by using the angled lower control arms to "twist" the bar using the
ends as levers. It works because the bar is forced to be rotated through two bushings on each control arm. While it works well with new "tight" bushings, any slop in the bar bushings will result in having no sway bar at all, till suficient sway ocurrs to load the bushings. This gives a very non-linear feel to the car, and makes it interesting to drive at speed.
If you try to put traditional type clamp bushing in the center of the bar "like a conventional sway bar", you will break the bar, and probably bend up your lower control arms too.
Puting in nylon or delrin bushings will make the sway bar very responsive because it eliminates the slop and sponginess of the rubber bushings, and will even act like a slightly bigger bar. Great bang for buck if you ask me.
Jarrid Gross