[165th]

My 1979 TATA is an original un-restored car with 3,820 miles. The original owner never touched the car since new, including never having gone under the hood for normal air cleaner changes or underhood cleaning. Even the fan belts are original. I did find an oil change receipt from 1985 with 2,897 miles.

I have been doing a careful degreasing under the hood and general cleaning around the front suspension and came across a strange circumstance with the sway bar end links.

Both sway bar end link assemblies have flat washers vs. the cupped washers generally used on these parts. The passenger bushings are standard rubber.

The drivers side bushings are (were) a hard white neoprene. From the picture you can see how much gap there is in the link bolt. At first I thought it was just not tightened at the factory, but then realized all but one of the neoprene bushings have exploded due to brittleness. I founds parts of the bushings in the coil spring well on the lower A arm. The one remaining is cracked badly and soon to break as well.

As there is no signs of any work ever being done on this car, I am confused, why the flat washers, why the two end links would be different, and why there would be neoprene bushings on the drivers side.

Does anyone have any information on this 'anomaly' regarding sway bar end link washers and bushings used in 1979 WS6 cars, or TATA's?