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This is the 3/4" front sway bar I bought from www.swaybars.com. It comes with poly bushings and installs easily. |
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Here's the bar installed on my Topaz. It works in conjunction with the factory locator/sway bar. |
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Another view of the front sway bar. The end links are simply two pieces of flat iron that clamp onto the control arm with 2 bolts. It makes for an easy installation but it doesn't function very well. The clamp can move around the control arm and reduce the sway bars effectiveness. The clamps also attach inboard of the factory bar so their effectiveness is again reduced by the leverage effect. I am going to rectify this by adapting end links from a 1995 Taurus which will attach the end of the sway bar directly to the strut. |
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This is the addco 3/4" rear sway bar. It attaches to the knuckle with an end link and an angle bracket. |
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Here you can see the custom mid-section mounts. They're made out of 2x2" tubing and some 2" flat iron. The mounts addco supplied are poorly designed and would last about 5 minutes on the street. Their mounts also position the bar at a severe angle(to clear the exhaust pipe) which limit the sway bars effectiveness. |
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The end links Addco supplies with the Tempo front sway bar are just 2 pieces of flat iron that clamp around the control arm. They are quite ineffective because they can rotate around the arm and they are located inwards of the factory swaybar. So their effectiveness is reduced again by the leverage effect. I remedied this by adapting end links from a 95 Taurus. This link is a just a rod with a ball type joint at each end. So it provides a solid connection between the Addco sway bar and the strut giving 100% effectiveness. To attach the end link to the sway bar I fabricated a simple bracket out of angle iron as pictured here. |
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I fabricated an upper bracket for the end link out of flat iron and 1.5" I.D steel pipe. I took a 6" section of the pipe and cut it down the sides to form 2 half-pipes. I then welded a piece of flat iron to one of the halves to give the end link a place to bolt to. The half pipe fits the diameter of the strut perfectly and I held it on with 2 muffler clamps. But when I installed the wheel, the tire rubbed the clamps. So I'm going to have the pipe welded to the strut. |
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Here's a good view of how it all goes together It took a bit of tweaking but I can turn the wheels lock to lock without the end link contacting anything. |