I need help keep the leans out of the wagon. It a top heavy car and with airbags it likes to lean alot. I want to put a sway bar under it (and probably a panhard bar to minimize the side to side sway I get). I have a 81 Malibu rearend (4 link style with airbags replacing the coils) under my 53 wagon. The gas tank sits very close to the rear end limiting the room I have. While at a show recently I seen a torsion bar set up (similar to what Nascar uses I think). From what I could see it looked like a tube was welded between the frame rails and a torsion bar was inside with an arm on each end that connected to a heim joint ( rear end had a tab welded to it for a heim joint to bolt to. Has anyone used a set up like this or have any suggestions.
Look at some of the street rod sway bars that are sold that use the same design as the "nascar" bars. C9 has one of these on his car, hopefully he can put a picture showing it, I have seen it on here before However, here is a cheaper alternative: You can scrounge the junkyards and find a bar that is the right dimensions to mount to your lower arms, or the rearend. It does not matter if it mounts the bar to the rearend or the arms, it does matter how you mount it. For center of the bar mounted to the rearend the free end is mounted to the frame. The free end can point either forward or backward, it will still function. For the free ends mounted to the arms, the center portion is free. Either way provides resistance to roll (what a sway bar actually does). I don't have a picture handy right now, but on my 37 Chevy truck I mounted a junkyard rear bar using muffler clamps on the rearend tubes. Look at how some of the late model SUV's mount the rear bars and you can get good ideas. Do you have a front bar? If not put one there as well. If so, look into a bigger bar. On my 37 Chevy truck it made a tremendous improvement in the leaning in corners. I won't go so far as to take on a corvette, but it handles as good as most any car on the road. All for a total cost of about $50 front and rear combined since I used junkyard swaybars.
We are about half finished putting a sprint car torsion bar in the front of a 34 Desoto for a sway bar. If you have a local circle track that runs 360 and 410 sprint you might be able to come up with a few bars from a racer that has wadded one up. Usually it is a slight bend that makes the bar rub the torsion tube. That would make the suspension bind. But in our setup we mounted it like a factory style setup with a single mount on either side. You can get the ends with the right spline from Speedway. Then you have to make you attaching arm. Some of the parts can be found here
bttt Thanks for the sway bar tips, Maybe C9 will see this and share some of his info.. I had not thought about mounting it off the arms and floating it off the rear end itself.... Lulu - I was able to find a pair from FlatTop Bob... They should be in the mail, thanks for asking thou... Your set up gives me some ideas, thanks for the tip..
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