So I broke my sway bar yesterday... and ripped a control arm

[gnat]

I noticed a noise in the rear and by the time I went over the speed bumps at the tag office and got over to a friends house this is what it looked like.

Note this is with the car jacked up (when not jacked up the sway bar was two fingers off the ground)

My friend only had a jack and a block of wood. I had to jack it up, put the wood under the sway bar and then drop the jack over and over to bend it back up enough to drive home.

The unbroken side:

The break on the sway bar.

Another unbroken comparisson:

as it stands now without the sway bar:

This is how the sway bar used to sit in front of the rear wheel.

Is there a bar out there that isn't so low? It's a suspension techniques
(or was).

 

[gsjohnson]

I have never been a big fan of ST's stuff. They were popular in the 80s when they were the only game in town. Their top engineer left the company in the late 80s to run Eibach's U.S operation. They went BK after that and reformed under new ownership. They have since changed hands again. I was actually in ST's manufacturing plant and I was not impressed. So my next question is, how many burnouts do you do a day? And if ST's bar mounts in the stock location, and from the pics it appears that it does, why would it hang so low?

 

[gnat]

I believe it's just designed that way. The car is lowered so that may have something to do with it. But if you look at the side that didn't break you can see that there is only two bolts in there and there is no adjustment. The plates on the sway bar are just huge compared to the plates they bolt to on the control arm.

I do zero burn outs to be honest. Really, it's probably been a year since I've done one. I do however accellerate hard, often and a few days ago I dropped to second at about 40mph to get a good jump and then grab 3rd but that's as hard as I've driven it in a while.

Now... I may have hit a sewer cap yesterday (lol) but the rear was making noises prior to doing so. I'm also pretty sure that the cap I tagged was done so on the front of my car not the rear. I immediately went under the car and looked for a busted oilpan and or other problems and didn't see anything all around. I actually think it was just a coincidence.

Here is a previous pic which shows just how the sway bar is made. The bolt holes are just very high and the bar hangs low

I still have the red control arms so I may put them back on(they're identical). I guess I'll look up some bk or eibach sway bars.

It sits pretty low already I guess? Maybe I need some 18s instead of 17s

 

[mustang50v8]

the maximum motorsports swaybar does not hang down like that.

i dont know why anybody would create a sway bar that hangs that low, especially in a car that commonly gets lowered.

 

[gnat]

the maximum motorsports swaybar does not hang down like that.

i dont know why anybody would create a sway bar that hangs that low, especially in a car that commonly gets lowered.

cool, thanks for the recommendation, I'll take a look at it.

 

[mustang50v8]

or you could go with the Eibach front and rear swaybar kit. that would be thicker than the stock ones, and possibly the maximum motorsports kit.

although i dont claim to know the size of the stock swaybar.


are you going to weld the control arm piece back in to fix it or just replace the entire control arm?

 

[gsjohnson]

I didn't realize that your swaybar was entended lower using the same OEM mounts on the control arms. Wonder why they would do that? I run Eibach swaybars and the rear locates identically to the original one. It was difficult and challenging though to reinstall the bar because the additional thickness of the Eibach bar made the slip fit into the bottem of the LCAs quite tight. And with one man doing it, it's a project.

 

[gnat]

or you could go with the Eibach front and rear swaybar kit. that would be thicker than the stock ones, and possibly the maximum motorsports kit.

although i dont claim to know the size of the stock swaybar.


are you going to weld the control arm piece back in to fix it or just replace the entire control arm?

Good question... my brother welds big trucks, roll offs, trash trucks etc for a living and I'm taking it to him tomorrow after work. He said we'll just weld it but I still have the last pair of upper and lower control arms they just don't have bushings. Originally I needed bushings but they were backordered so I went ahead just bought a whole new set of CAs since it really didn't cost a ton more and one or two of the grease fitings were broken off of them.

So yes, we're going to weld it first... if it doesn't work well I'll probably go back to the older CAs with the current bushings albeit I'd rather not have to move them to the other control arms( I do like the red ones better than the black ones though )

 

[BennyBlown2v]

i have a stock gt swayar and set of uca's i need to get outa the garage, pm me if interested.

 

[gnat]

ok the control arm was totally screwed so we welded the sway bar together until I can get another and put an older control arm in after switching the bushings over. Feels great again.

also added a little extra support to the sway bar.

 

[GettinThere]

...so we welded the sway bar together until I can get another...

Get another sway bar soon - from the picture, it looks like your mishap is likely to happen again. Damn that bar hangs down low, looks like a crappy design.

Hope this turns out well for you.

 

[Mel96GT]

That design is asking for serious damage. The swaybar prolly caught on something and busted the control arm, IMHO. Get a stock swaybar and you'll see how much higher it sits. That is a bad design as far as durability is concerned.

 

[gnat]

yeah I will be replacing it soon, I honestly believe it to be pretty damn sturdy at the moment though. But just having one hang down that low is completely ridiculous.

 

[1low03gt]

ok the control arm was totally screwed so we welded the sway bar together until I can get another and put an older control arm in after switching the bushings over. Feels great again.
also added a little extra support to the sway bar.

Couldn't you cut those sway bar mounting plates down a bit and drill new holes so you can get the sway closer to the lower control arms,and away from the ground,especially that front hole.I wouldn't trust that at all.Waaaay too low.

 

[mustang50v8]

after going back and looking again i would totally recommend that maximum motorsports sway bar. they have a fantastic reputation, it mounts exactly like the stock swaybar, and its only 130 bucks.

cant go wrong with MM at that price.

 

[steedastangt]

FYI: lowering your car will not make the sway bar lower to the ground. Only smaller tires or no tires will do so.

goog luck on fixin her!