Literally. The front end of my Dart was starting to make a bad banging/rattling sound, and when I crawled under the car to check it out, I discovered the sway bar had been hitting the lower flange of the driver's side lower control arm. I shortened the spacer sleave in the link by about 1/2" to raise the sway bar end up a little. Spacing is very tight between the strut rod, the sway bar link, and the LCA, but they are free of interference.

The bottom line is, not only does the front end now sound right, and relatively silent, but it handles much nicer. I was complaining about the serious and abrupt over steer it had, and when I drove it tonight after clearing up this interference between the sway bar and the LCA, it handles much more predicatably. So, I think this interferance was a part of the problem.

It is great to fix something like this. I just wonder how I missed it in the past. It was so obvious to me when I looked at it last night. I suppose it might be that the relationship of these parts change from when they are up in the air to when they are back on the ground. I also stopped off and picked up grade 8 bolts for all the mounting hardware, and cranked the p*** out of them when installing everything. It is nice to be back into car weather.

I feel better about the solid front strut mounts, and the tubular upper control arms, as this bad handling, and somewhat noisy front end coincided with installing all that stuff. I just thought it was from the new parts, and didn't think to look at the sway bar and see if it was a part of the change in behavior. I like those new front end parts better now.

So the question is, should I feel good that the problem was my stupidity, and easily fixed,(sort of) or bad for being stupid? I can see it both ways.

Sam

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Call it a learning experience and be happy.

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David Kight
'62 Valiant Signet, White
'98 Dodge Dakota
'06 Jeep Liberty

Growing older is unavoidable but growing up is strictly optional.

Thanks Dave. That is a healthy, stress free way to look at it. I actually felt great about getting it fixed. But, I did feel a little near sighted, myopic, male-pattern-blindness kind-of silly for missing it for more than a year. I didn't feel too silly to share it with you though. In the computer business I guess they call this "user error". It makes one realize that a users opinion of any after market part must be tempered by the fact that there is always a chance that the user did not install things correctly.

I actually think there is a real challenge getting all of these aftrmarket sway bar mount set ups to work right. The thing is, this is the type of work I do best. It is just basic blacksmith work. But, I have been struggling to make them work well for 35 years, ever since I put an Addco kit on my '72 Duster. I have tried mounting them many different ways, with different length links, and different body mount bracket set ups, and there always seems to be a problem with clearances. I am considering having my welding/fabricator guy make some factory style LCA link tabs and weld them to the bottom of the LCA.

The problem is that mounting the tabs to the shock bolt the way the aftermarket kits do places the LCA tab at the wrong angle, and too far inboard. This brings the link very close to the front strut and places the link end in line with the upper bumper stop, where it can bang under exreme load. That would happen under cornering loads high enough to compess the bushings a lot. And, the mounting position of most kits gets the end of the bar gets too close to the LCA.

As I said before, I am a much more enthusiastic promoter of these custom front end parts than I was before. The solid strut rod ends improved the braking remarkably, and the tubular upper control arms allow a healthy caster amount, so the car felt very stable on the road. But the harshness of the ride, and noisinness of the ride, which I incorrectly attributed to the custom parts themselves, seemed to make their use a less than ideal trade off. Well, I have reversed my thinking on that. I don;t see much of a down side to using them now. I got these parts from Big Block Dart, and can heartily recommend their use now.

By the way, my front end alignment guy, who is a car enthusiast too missed the fact that the sway bar was making contact with the LCA.

Sam

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I alway feel good about fixing a problem... even when I caused it!

FYI, I have been making and welding-on my own LCA sway bar mounts for years and it is the way to go. Doing that allows you to get the sway bar correctly positioned and the link rods straight, between the bar and the brackets.
DD

Thanks for the words of support there. Do you have any suggestions about what thickness material to use for the sway bar tab, and what shape to make it? Do you have a photo of said constructions? I was going to look at the photos in the shop manual of the factory set up. Since my bar is much heavier than stock, it seems like maybe the tab should be a little heavier than stock. Thanks for any advice.

Sam

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