ive done a search and nothing really comes up other then cal tracs. not really looking for all of that. would just like to keep my rear from moving from side to side. the springs are new. it only moves a little but its enough to let my tires (235/60/15) rub on the outside of the wheel well when turning hard. normal driving going in straight line hitting bumps does not rub. pretty much just when it is turning hard or bumpy turns.

so my question would be, has anyone installed or fabricated a track bar for their early A? any pic, tips or suggestions? would prefer to fabricate my own instead of buying a pre made kit. ive got a 66 valiant with a 8 1/4 rear.

Poly bushings can help quite a bit. What backspacing are your wheels?

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Joshua

4.5" backspacing. they are the cop car rims. 15x7.

anyone?

A track bar is normally used with a ladder bar/coil over or 4 link setup.

With leaf springs you could build one, anchor it on the shock plate on one side and the front spring eye area on the other.

I am not sure it will cure your problem anyway. A track bar won't do much with body roll.

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

my thought was to come off of the pinion snubber and go over to the frame rail with some hyme joints for flex. the problem isnt body roll, its the rear moving side to side. i can drive up a curb at a 45* so only one tire is going up at a time and they dont rub, its only on hard turns.

Trying to picture how that would work? You have up and down movement and rotating movement at the pinion snubber....

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

The 1970 TransAm cars tried Panhard bars and used wide shackles so as to defeat the leaf spring's lateral location abilities. Then they took the Panhard bar back out.

Until you use harder bushings you're making a lot of work for yourself for very little gain. You may also screw up the rear roll center and end up with worse handling. Polyurethane leaf spring bushings are cheap, easy and effective. They cured the rear tire rub on my Dart when I road raced it and you do not have the same forces at work with street tires as I did with race tires.

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Joshua

ill give them a shot. they are the ones that make noise right? what do you put in there to keep that from happening? grease, graphite?

A track bar has a slight amount of left-right movement as it goes thru its arc.

Plus, unless you use solid or poly bushings on the track bar; it will have just as much give as the rubber bushings in the leave springs...........

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

i understand that. but its not going to be as much as it is now. was planning on using hyme joints or however its spelled and bolt them solid from the rear to the frame rail. should be pretty rigid. im gonna hold of on it for a while. need to get it running right just trying to set up the next project. it needs new tires pretty soon so ill just go smaller for now.

Are your fenders rolled?

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

no. the way the fender flares out its not even close to hitting the lip. it actually hits up in the wheel well on the outside.

A track bar will do as you like but you need to mount it to be sure the roll center ends up where you want it. The roll center pretty much follows the vertical location of the track bar. For the stock roll center location, the track bar should be a round center axle height or perhaps a bit higher.

It is easy to look up the roll center location of a leaf sprung live axle and for a track bar aligned live axle, and match them up. Make the track bar as long as you can to limit the sideways movement of the swing of the track bar. I would put a rubber bushing in one end and a heim joint in the other if for the street; the rubber bushing will absorb sideways shocks that can break things.

Lowering the track bar is desirable in one way; to lower the rear roll center and make the roll axis flatter. But there is some work that need to go with that to take advantage of that and not mess other handling characteristics up.

And as for the Trans Am, the result is dependent on a lot of other factors, so just because it was tried an dropped means nothing. 2 of the most successful Group B RWD rally cars in the 80's (Opel Ascona B and Toyota Celica) used a low mounted panhard rod for live axle location. And NSACAR added them many, many years ago for handling reasons.

Check out a couple of current threads on www.forabodiesonly.com in the suspension sub-forum about this.

I had the same issue with that size tie too on my 64. My dad shows me a trick with 2x4's. We left the tire on the car but had it on jack stands and let the rear hang just a little. We took one piece from the tire to the inner wheel well. Can't remember the size.. Then another piece about 12" between the first board and the tire. Letting the extra point downwards, so you have a handle. The second piece is the lever and the first is the pusher. By pulling the lever it pushes the other board into the wheel well. Somebody will need to hold the quarter panel from moving also. This gave me 1/2" more clearance per side. And no hammer marks and the quarter panel looks fine too. Also, by changing the contact point of where the first piece meets the second changes your travel.

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AGAINST THE GRAIN IS MY WAY