Front sway bar bushes

[MarkT]

And the ongoing saga of the front suspension rebuild continues....3 weeks to strip and rebuild one side; 2 days to strip the other. Now for the rebuild.

I decided to take of the front (stock?) sway bar to replace the worn rubber bushings with some nice new urethane ones from TRF. But - does anyone have a clue how to get them on???! When I compress one in a clamp to pretty much maximum, the hole is still ~3-4 mm too narrow to fit over the flattened end of the sway bar. Maybe gentle heating might help, along with some grease? But I don't see how to get around this difference in size. In the TRF catalogue, this bush is sold along with the same sway bar, so it _must_ work. Somehow.

Cheers,
Mark
____________________________
1976 TR6 (in several pieces /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hammer.gif)

 

[Alan_Myers]

Hi Mark,

There are various diameter sway bars sold and the mounting bushings need to be sized to match, no matter what's shown in the TRF catalog. Probably the most common size was 3/4", but some bars are 9/16" and others are 5/8", 11/16" and 7/8", 1" on TRs (and even much larger for other cars). I think you have just got a mismatch.

You'll either need to return those bushings or you might be able to drill out the hole larger to fit, if you wish. If you decide to drill, be careful not to make them overly loose. Urethane should have a small amount of compression. Not much, just a little.

Do try to use some synthetic grease in there to help prevent "urethane squeek". I drilled my TR4's sway bar bushings and installed grease zerks, and plan to get another, small grease gun just to keep some "correct" grease handy for that purpose.

Some places now offer universal urethane bushings already set up for grease, along with tubes of the correct type of grease. I don't know if the universal type mounting bushings can be fitted in the original brackets on your car, though. I seem to recall the TR6 are square on the outside, while the universal are round. You could switch to the more universal ones, they come with fitted mounting brackets, but might need to drill new mounting holes.

You can find out a lot more by looking up Prothane, Superflex and Energy Suspension, three major manufacturers of urethane bushings. And, I see a couple hundred different greasable and non-greasable urethane mounting bushings for a wide variety of bar-diameter sizes on www.summitracing.com.

By the way, your sway bar end links are important, too. If using the stock type, they have compressable rubber at one end that takes the initial movement of the suspension before the sway bar starts coming into play. You might experiment with urethane there, too, to see how you like it. Alternatively, there are rod ends (called rose joints in the UK) that allow no play what-so-ever. These engage the sway bar all the time, and might be a little harsh for general road use.

To give just a little free motion before the sway bar becomes effective, I've switched back to thinner than usual rubber end-link bushings on my TR4. I'm using TR250/6 style end links, along with a specially bent Addco 3/4" bar and urethane bar mounting bushings. This is in combination with up-rated front springs, that don't give very much body roll anyway.

My point is, there are a variety of things you can do to fine-tune your car's supension with the sway bar(s), both by changing the diameter of the bars themselves and fooling around with bar mounting and end link bushings.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif

 

[philman]

when i upgraded the sway bars on my tr7 i purchased a bushing kit from tuff country suspension in utah. it was a split bushing and cost $25 or $30 I think. they aren't and don't look stock, but were easy to install and seem to work well.

 

[MarkT]

Alan,

Thanks for the detailed reply. I've just measured things up - both the diameter of the sway bar and the diameter of the hole in the bushes are 11/16", so they should be a match. I'll have a go tomorrow with heating the bushings in water for a few minutes to make them more pliable and see what happens. To avoid the hassles refitting the mounting brackets, I'm considering getting custom aluminium mounts made so the bolt can be accessed on the outside (similar to the Goodparts mounting brackets).

As I had to redo pretty much the entire front suspension, I got the TRF front suspension and steering kit with the urethane bushings. New end links were included, along with a whole pile of very useful stuff. I'd definitely recommend that kit to anyone doing this kind of job.

Mark

 

[RomanH]

Hi Mark,
I did this job recently and ran into the same dilemma as you have. FWIW what I did to finally install the bushing was to compress it as you have done next I spayed the ID of the bushing and also the sway bar with a silicon lube then I forced it over the flattened portion of the bar as best I could. After the bushing started over the end I hit it with a urathane mallet until it cleared the flat portion of the bar. Crude but effective. Once you have passed that section you may have to use some persuasion again to get it passed the curved portion and into position. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hammer.gif
Good Luck!
Roman

 

[Alan_Myers]

Hi Mark, Roman, et al....

Wow, you mean those bushings aren't split!? No wonder they are hard to get onto the bar! Sounds like softening them up in some hot water and using silicone spray are the way to go.

Cheers!

 

[71tr]

I've used the energy suspension bushing components sold by summitracing.com and also available at all autoparts stores. Much less expensive than the TRF products and the sway bar mounts are split for easy install and the mounting brackets that come with the bushes are far superior to the original u-bracket installed on the six. It did require drilling a new mounting hole. Caution, the sway bar mounting brackets come in two sizes, the six requires the smaller size.

 

[kskov]

Boil em' and its a snap!