I would like to have a custom sway bar made for the rear of my 57 chevy, hidden from the rear view of the car. It will have some unique bends to make it fit so looking for an existing application isnt going to work. I got a quote for $1000 so far, seems steep to me, anyone know of more companies who makes custom sway bars?
Be careful about "custom" bars. Make SURE that the manufacturer uses "actual" spring steel. Otherwise...it's just additional weight. The "stock car", splined bars might be a good option. Can be located anywhere you can fit them. Another bar to look into. The 1950's, performance Studebaker rear anti-sway bars fit up by the cars floor, attached to the frame and had arms that come down and attach to the spring perchs. They are great, nothing hangs down in the wind. Don't recall, they are either 5/8" or 3/4" dia. I know that you can get both. Possibly different vendors. See below. Page 271, upper, center of page. https://www.studebaker-intl.com/catalog_pdf/suspension.pdf Mike
$1000 bucks seems about right for a one-off, essentially prototype bar with multiple bends. It is a multiple step process that requires some tooling setup at each step. The tooling setup is what drives the cost for a single part. 1st step - bend an annealed high carbon steel bar to shape. 2. Weld on the ends or any brackets. 3. Heat Treat said bar. 4. Measure and "adjust" any warpage caused by the heat treat process. I had custom bars made all the time at my previous 2 jobs for prototype and testing purposes. These bars ranged from 1/2" to 2" in diameter (Yes, we used 2" solid bars on the front of Firetrucks, 24,000 lb GAWR suspensions). Bauer Welding and Fab in St. Paul, MN for the smaller stuff, and Roadmaster, Inc out of Vancouver, WA for the bigger stuff.
I'll second this type of rear bar. Years ago, I fitted an Addco rear bar to an OT car I owned (factory 9" rear axle). This was an axle-mount bar, with the end links attaching to the frame. I'll note here that I had the axle slightly narrowed at the same time to better fit the large tires I had, and had Art Morrison narrow it. Shortly after fitting the narrowed housing and rear bar, I started having axle bearing failures, to the point that they didn't last beyond 5K miles on either side. After numerous failures, I pulled the housing and returned it to Art to check for straightness. It was definitely bent. Art****umed he had screwed up, re-straightened the housing by cutting off the ends and reattaching them using his jig, no charge. So I should be good to go, right? NOT! Within 5K miles I started having failures again. Pulled the housing again, back to Morrisons. Yep, bent again. Now, I'd had zero issues with axle bearings before the narrowing/sway bar mod, we figured it was the stress of the bar 'levering' against the housing that was bending it. Straightened the housing again, removed the sway bar, the problem went away. I searched in vain for a chassis-mount bar that would fit that car, never did find one. But I did learn things. One, Ford on the rare occasions where they offered or fit a rear sway bar to a leaf-spring car, installed a chassis-mount bar. Two, Ford also had various strength housings, with the heavy-duty ones mostly used on trucks and coil-spring rear suspension cars, and used an axle-mount type when fitted. The car leaf-spring housings were lighter. I could have had Art reinforce the housing but it wasn't in the budget at the time... You don't say what axle you're using, so this may not apply. But generally speaking, a chassis mount can be a simpler design and has little or no unsprung weight penalty. If you're trying to 'hide' it, it's much easier to do so. FWIW, the car handled great with the rear bar.... but the cost was too high.
I would look into using a sprint car type torsion bar. They have splined ends and use splined aluminum arms. If you can mount the straight bar, the aluminum arms can be bent to where they need to be. The bars come in various spring rates for fine tuning. The bars are gun drilled, so there is very little weight to the system.
Just amazing that Quickor is still around. I used to make parts for them in the late 70's when they were Quickor Engineering. Good for them!
I have an Addco bar on the front of my '57, just an off-the-shelf item they have on their website, and I had to wait 4 months to get it. If they're that behind on regular stuff, I doubt they'd take on a custom job, or if they did, you'd be waiting a long time for it. I put the 5 leaf spring packs in my car and was surprised by how well that stiffened up the rear, along with air shocks it takes a corner really nicely now compared to the original old springs and no bar up front. Not sure what you're hoping to accomplish, but if you've got the original 4 leaf springs and are just looking to take some boatyness out of it with something that won't be visible when installed, that's something to consider.
I am a Pick-A-Part fanatic. My first move would be to go to the yard and find a factory bar I could adapt to my car. $25 vs. $1000 and I did it myself. TIP; for pre-war rods, the old Ford Courier pickup front sway bar is a great fit on most cars. Here are shots of that bar on a '36 Pontiac and '36 Willys (hard to see!) frame. Usually need to bend the ends a bit but my Harbor Freight 12 ton press does the deed easily.
i think ive seen truck sway bars that go over the top of the axle..a google search might show some...then just have it tweaked , fitted...after all its about hot rodding ..
Any factory swaybar can be made to work on your '57 Chev if you find one the right width for your car, and off a similar size and weight car. Most will be under the axle on the donor car, but there's no reason those swaybars can't be installed above the axle and will work exactly the same. Just need to mount brackets above to mount the swaybar, and then run the links down to the spring plates instead of up to the frame. If your '57 doesn't have a shock relocation upper crossmember already, it should have one soon, and that gives you a decent place to fabricate the upper attachment to mount the swaybar on. Then lower brackets can be fabricated off the spring plates to mount the bolts for the end links. It may take a little work on your part, but you'll end up saving $950 over a custom swaybar!
A friend took a sway bar that was close to what he needed to the muffler shop that did a bit more bending.
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