Sway bar mounting issue 68 wagon
 

My 68 wagon has a 1 1/4" front sway bar. One of the mounting brackets was ripped and the end link bolt on that side of the car was bent. I bought new polurethane bushings with the mounting brackets and rubber end link kits as that is what it had on the car when I got it.

I can mount the sway bar brackets and bushings to the frame, but I can't get the new end link bolts and bushings properly lined up. When you look at the ends of the sway bar, the hole angle is quite a bit different than the angle of the hole in the lower control arms on both sides of the car. Because of that, I can't get the rubber bushings for the end links to go down far enough into the control arm holes to put the nuts on the top of the link bolts. I tried loosening the sway bar mounting brackets, but it didn't move things enough to make it all line up.

In looking at the rubber end link bushings that were on the car, you can tell that the mismatch of angles between the sway bar and lower control arm caused the original end link bushings to become deformed even on the side of the car without the bent link bolt.

Any suggestions on how to get the new end link bushings and bolts to line up properly with the sway bar and control arms?

Thanks
Old Joe

I loosely connected the end links first and then raised the bar to the frame.
Ideally you want the ends to be parallel to the ground so you may have to cut the end link bolt/spacer to make it fit correctly. I used a kit from Summit with different thickness poly bushings to keep the end links vertical and the bar parallel to the ground
I put the front tires on blocks to keep the springs compressed which shortened the distance between the lower control arm and bar and to allow working room. Installing the end link bolt with the bolt head at the top helps somewhat.

From my El Camino.

Thanks for the help. I tried completely disconnecting the sway bar mounting bracket on one end and still couldn't get the end link bushings to line up well enough to get the nut on. I need about another 1/4" of bolt to get the nut on. I'm guessing that once I get the nut on each link, I should be able to tighten it up and the bushings hopefully will squish into place, though not evenly.

After surfing around I found other folks with similar issues on different kinds of cars. The resolutions varied. Given the bolt is installed from the bottom of the control arm (nut up), one indivdual placed a jack under the bolt head and jacked the bolt head upward enough to squish the bottom bushing so he could get the nut on. That got me to thinking that if I just jacked up one wheel at a time, I could maybe get the lower control arm to go up 1/4" to put the nut on. Another alternative would be to cut the spacer as you suggest. Perhaps the easiest solution is simply to use a longer bolt, but it would need to have long enough threads so the nut goes down far enough to create the proper compression on the bushings.

I also have one more thought. Right now my car is on my 4 post lift so it sits on all 4 tires. I could park my garden tractor under the frame, hook my come along to the frame and tractor and then pull the frame downward 1/4" to move the lower control arms upwards. That's what I'm going to try next since it's easy to do. In the old days, the car would have been sitting on the ground with one front wheel removed and a couple of my beer drinking buddies would have been sitting on the bumper while I put the nuts on. I miss those days.........

DOH!!!!!!!!! I just realized that if I lifted the car off the wheels, the angle of the control arm holes would align better with the sway bar. I was thinking that I needed to shorten the distance between the lower control arm and the sway bar to get the nuts on, but the real issue is the misalignment of the holes. If things work after I try that, then DOH! DOH! and DOH!

DOH! DOH! DOH! That was it. Talk about overthinking it.......

Do you have a rear sway bar? If so is it stock thickness? How''s it handle? I too have a 68 wagon.

Please see the PM I sent you for more information.

Regards,
Old Joe