Tried to bend this cold thinking heat would harm it. Well that didn't work, although I was on the second side, first went OK. Would heat be OK, I have another? The bend I was removing is where it broke, not the one you see. I was almost done...
LOL I don't think that heating it would hurt it any more then you did. If you heat it you should maybe harden it afterward. That's my thoughts on it anyway.
I think if you would heat it to orange hot, not yellow hot it would be alright but maybe someone else will chime in.
My .02. Next time take it to a machine shop and let tem do a Rockwell harness test. Then you will know the tensile strength. I think sway bars are HT for their required stiffeness.
You think that's funny you should have seen me bending it. Clamped in a vice with me standing one foot on the vice, another on a stool, 4 foot cheater pipe... luckily I didn't hit anything on the way down.
Trying to make it fit something for which there is no off the shelf part. The bend was small, less than 45 degrees.
a Years ago I bought a 1" front sway-bar from JCW. Got it and didn't think anything about its box being all beat up. Put it on and found out that it was spread about a 1/2" on both ends. Should have sent it back, but.... Anyway, I took it to a welding shop that had a 50 ton hy-press and the guy tweaked both ends fine. Cost me extra though... BUT he told me to get out of his shop while he tweaked it in case it broke! Works fine now. Now if I get something whose box is torn up, I check it to see if it hadn't been returned because something was wrong with the part! Oh, Off Topic, but.. Bought BB z-bar for my '67 Camaro years ago and it was broken when I got it and it's box was like new. Called them up and they said keep the broke z-bar and sent me another one for free. They knew darned good and well they shipped it out to me broke!! pdq67
A sway bar is basically just a long spring. Use plenty of heat to bend it, then take it to a spring shop and have it retempered....
It depends on where you have to bend it. Where yours broke its action along the bar is torsional, so heating it is not a good idea without re-tempering, as some have stated. On my '40 Ford with a '69 Camaro front subframe, I narrowed the upper and lower control arms to bring the tires under the fenders about 1-1/2" on each side. I wanted to keep the sway bar, so I just heated the bars just after the 90 degree bends and moved the ends in the 1-1/2". At that spot, the forces are strictly bending. and the bar did not need any re-tempering....worked out fine.
The Jalopy Journal
