Hi everyone
I'm thinking of installing a rear sway bar for my 68 cutlass. Very new to all of this and wondering what would be involved. The current control arms have the pre-drilled holes for the sway bar. There's a guy locally who has a 1-1/8" sway bar for a very good price, it's off a 70 olds cutlass.
Will this work on my car?
Is it to heavy/thick for my car?
Will the current control arms be okay?
Do I have to purchase a rear sway bar kit? or can I just use small blocks of steel with the diameter of fastening bolts drilled through them?
Will the sway bar actually give me any noticeable difference in the ride?

All and any help would be appreciated!

Thanks
Andy

 

The 70 rear anti-sway bar should work fine. You will need some bracing inside the lower control arms where the bolts go thru. Some blocks of metal that you mention or pieces of pipe should do it. This will stiffen the arms some and prevent the bolts from crushing in the control arms. The ideal thing would be to find some boxed 442 arms or possibly get the ones off the 70. I think you will notice a bit of better handling and less roll/lean to the body on turns.

 

A couple of things to think about. First, the general rule of thumb in handling is that the stiffer end of the car breaks away first. This is a gross simplification, but if all you're doing is changing or adding bars, it will provide some guidance.

All A-body cars (and virtually all 60s/70s US-built cars) understeer. Adding a rear bar will help significantly in two ways. By stiffening the rear, it helps make the car more neutral. By reducing roll overall it also helps handling.

I'm curious about this 1 1/8" bar. Is that for the front or the rear? The largest factory rear bar for the 64-72 cars was 7/8". There are certainly aftermarket bars that are larger. Do you know what this is? Some of the aftermarket bars mount to the bottom of the control arms (as do the 73-77 bars). They often come with U-shaped inserts that slip into the open section arms and allow you to bolt the bar in place. If you have a conventional bar that bolts to the sides of the arms, you will either need to box your current arms or at a minimum install spacers. The problem with only using spacers is that the open-section arms will twist, effectively softening the rear bar and negating some of the benefit.