Civilian Rear Sway Bar?

[packman]

Okay, I found a civilian rear sway bar yesterday on an '89 MGM. I have to get my mom's car freed up so I can get a good look underneath. Until that time comes, do I need to drill the bolt holes into the Ford civilian trailing arm since my '86 CV didn't come with a rear bar? If I do manage to find a PI rear bar, and after reading the sticky, I assume that I'm going to be taking the upper and lower trailing arms too?



Packman

[85crownHPP]

Dont need the upper arms for anything.
Have a look at your lower arms, you might have two holes already. If not, then you need to drill. Once you have the holes, that's all you need for either bar. I remember someone found their police box had thicker steel lower arms, so these might be an upgrade if its worth the hassle.
Some folks also had to smash the lip down on the lower bars on their civilian arms to get the sway bar to sit right, but the two I've installed didn't need this.

[Glen]

After you drill for the civi bar and find the PI bar, it will bolt right on. The bolt holes are the same for both, just be sure to center the civi bar before you drill. The PI bar has a thicker flange.

[1987cp]

I would think correct fore-to-aft positioning would be the most critical part if the arms need to be drilled. I had to drill through the top of the control arms for my aftermarket rear bar on the wagon and ended up with the bar a little too far forward and having a tendency to hit the shocks and make annoying noises.

[Lincolnmania]

you know out of all the boxes that i have worked on, i have never seen one in person that did not have two holes in each rear lower control arm. heck two of the vics here came factory with the 1/2" rear bar.

[packman]

Lower Control Arm Bushings

Does anybody know the part number for the lower control arm bushings that go in between the channeled steel for the rear sway bar? If there is a bushing, is there an aftermarket polygraphite bushing? The car I pulled the rear bar off of, didn't have the bushing. I noticed as I tightened the sway bar that I was pinching the control arm a little so I backed it off for now.



Packman

[mrltd]

Poly rear bar bushing? The rear bars use a metal sleeve.

[packman]

Sticky said the police lower arms used bushings; I didn't know if the civilian arms used them or not.



Packman

[mrltd]

Hmm.... I missed that. No *box* rear bar used bushings. Mind pointing me to that post?

As for the upper arms, you can get them if you want, They might be thicker, but probably not much of an upgrade for the hassle.

[mrltd]

Ah, I got it... it's a METAL bushing! That's not rubber/poly. The ford diagram...Yeah, that's confusing.

[Archangel]

They all use steel spacers man, they go inside the control arms between their two walls and the bolts go through them spacers, the idea is to not crush the control arm when you start tightening the bolts. Call them bushings if you want, but to me they are just spacers, hell you can use large hex nuts and some washers and achieve the same effect.

[1987cp]

Your local Ace Hardware may well sell steel spacer sleeves that you could cut to length.

[packman]

I have some random pipe sizes in the basement that I can check. If not, I can make something up. I would assume that Ford part# N800185-S2 has long been out of stock. I'll look in the basement at the control arm that we torched off, but I don't remember seeing any bushings. Hopefully I didn't damage the lower arms when I put the sway bars on and I can get the metal sleeve in there w/o too much trouble.



Packman

[mrltd]

I used a piece of like 5/8 or so diameter plumping pipe.

[packman]

Hoorah for insomnia!!! I went down to the JY this morning at 7 AM. I went to the place where we torched the MGM and I found two of the four bushings. At least I got something to model the home-made bushings after. I'll see what kind of time I got to make these up. Probably find the long sought cop bar by the time I get this done.



Packman