Oh, and bolts.. Some of the fasteners if yer interested. These are all "grade 9" bolts. But I wanted to show how they are hardened. Pretty cool actually. I had to turn down the watts link arm pivot bolts to get the right grip length. I really noticed how hard the outer case hardening was on the bolt and how it got softer at the center. You can see it on the turned end. And when I say hard I mean it. I was using some good carbide inserts and for a second I thought about grabbing the CBN inserts. But I just cranked up the RPMs and let the sparks fly, I love hard turning… But you can see the softer center of the bolt. Thats a good bolt. Not just a bulk hardening of the entire bolt. Has a hard outer surface, pretty deep really, and a softer core. Dont ever let anyone tell you a grade five bolt is better cause a grade 8 bolt is too hard, its just comical some of the threads I read.
Ok, so I'm gonna wrap this up. Sway bar is next. I looked into the sets available. Again, space was an issue, and rates really. My lower roll center with the watts link is gonna give more body roll. So I asked and looked around alot for a good starting point for the bar spring rate needed. Kinda a shot in the dark really without driving the car. But I decided on around 295lbs for the bar. And I already decided on a three piece bar from Speedway Engineering. They have some great stuff, many three piece bars you see labeled under a diff name may be their bar.
Its a straight torsion bar, solid or hollow, with splined ends. The arms are splined also and they come undrilled for the links. So you determine the rate you need and find the length bar that will suit the space issues. Thats where I screwed up, had to buy another bar cause my tires were too close to the first bar's arms. So anyway, get yer rates you need, the length bar that fits and drill the arms for the proper rate. They can be drilled from 10 to 15 inches for various rates.
I ordered the low profile pillow blocks. They come drilled to bolt them to the frame. I wanted a different mount. I made some brackets to bolt through the frame sideways instead of up through the frame.
I had intentions of being able to slide the mounts fore and aft to adjust for sway bar rates and just change the arm mounting holes. Not gonna happen that way. Too difficult to drill perfect holes through the frame. So I'll just get a different bar, same length but different rate if I need to change the rate later down the road. Gotta drive it first to even get to that point. So, here are the pics...
Made some brackets for the pillow blocks. It was a slow process. There is rubber in there. So I plug welded the holes up, cooled with a wet rag in between, made a weld, cooled, and so on. Never got it hot on the rubber side. LONG process.
They weren't set up with zerks so I drilled and tapped some holes and put on some zerks. I also lightly grooved the bearings in an outward spiral direction to allow the grease to move to the entire surface of the bearing. It seems to work, I have done it on some bed mills too.
Made a lil tool to help with holding the bar and pillow bocks up while I figured out the placement.
Arms drilled and reamed for the links.
Measuring up the link mounts. I can conveniently use the flat I welded to the spring perch earlier. Yeah, it was planned. Yeah RIGHT!!!
