Chassis advice needed..... - Lateral-g Forums

Vegas69 · #1 03-03-2010, 08:46 AM

I'm getting ready to insall a rear sway bar on my car. My plan was to have a plate and tab welded to the frame. Now I'm thinking of sandwiching the frame rail with two steel plates with three 3/8 bolts. With the tab on one side or both. The main reason is a cleaner install on my freshly coated frame rails and something I can do here myself. It seems plenty strong and over kill to me, but I'm no engineer.

JKnight · #2 03-03-2010, 09:11 AM

Fays2 uses shoulder bolts to mount the watts link crossmember to the frame rails, which might be a way to go with the setup you propose. The bolts have a 1/2" shoulder and 3/8" threaded section. Accordingly, the hole drilled on the outside of the frame rail is 1/2" and the inside is 3/8".

The shoulder portion of the bolts is just long enough to where it bottoms out on the inside part of the frame rail, which keeps you from squishing the frame with bolt torque. Jim at Fays2 might be willing to sell you the bolts if you contact him.

Bryce · #3 03-03-2010, 09:27 AM

JKnight,

Great advice. That is exactly what I would do. The shoulder bolt idea is the strongest you can do without welding a bushing into the frame. And Yes it would be strong enough. What is the max rate on your sway bar?

Another idea is similiar to the way TCP mounts their upper shock mount for mustangs. Basically a ubolt that sticks through the horizontal part of the frame rail. Now you have what looks like two studs sticking down and attach whatever plate you need on to the bottom of the frame.

Vegas69 · #4 03-03-2010, 09:35 AM

Good idea Jeff. The sway bar kit came with two sleeves for exactly that but I can't mount it traditionally. I'll call Jim and see if he'll sell me 6 shoulder bolts and have a some brackets cut.

Bryce · #5 03-03-2010, 09:38 AM

McMaster.com is a good source for shoulder bolts.

JKnight · #6 03-03-2010, 09:44 AM

I wish I had measured the shoulder length and overall length of the bolts before installing them. Then I could see if Mcmaster had them available.

Edit: It looks like they have a good selection in 1/4" length increments though so I'm sure you could measure the frame rail width and go that route. It might be a good idea to check this anyway in case the frame rail is a different width where you are mounting your sway bar links than where the Fays watt's link crossmember goes. I've never checked or noticed whether width varies along it's length or not....