Sway bar mount questions

monkeyodeath · 08-17-2018, 06:03 PM

Was peeking underneath my 3.2 the other day and realized that one of my sway bar mounts is trashed.

I'm not confident enough in my welding skills to fix it myself, but I do plan to grind the old one off, clean up the area, and source the new part before I take it to a welder.

A couple questions:

Is the improved stock part good enough for street use? Both my stock mounts have broken now and I'd like to avoid having to make this repair again. I don't track the car.

Can the broken mount contribute to shimmying while braking? I've got a pretty strong vibration happening when I brake at highway speeds. The front rotors are pretty new and I don't feel anything in the wheel, so I was assuming rear rotors, but didn't know if I should hold off and see if fixing the sway mount might solve the problem.

steely · 07:09 PM

I'm interested as well.
I just found out today.

fintstone · fintstone's Garage

I would at least upgrade to the WEVO version or similar.

Trakrat · 08-20-2018, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by monkeyodeath

Is the improved stock part good enough for street use? Both my stock mounts have broken now and I'd like to avoid having to make this repair again. I don't track the car.

If you are going to be having new ones welded on.. best to go with the WEVO brand sway bar mount.

I've read MANY posts about these factory mounts breaking apart just from street use.

Cory M · 08-20-2018, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trakrat

If you are going to be having new ones welded on.. best to go with the WEVO brand sway bar mount.

I've read MANY posts about these factory mounts breaking apart just from street use.

+1

If you've got to weld new ones in just do the Wevo or Jerry Woods mounts (search forum for pics) and be done with it.

bkreigsr · 08-20-2018, 11:29 AM

To answer your question, the factory mounts are adequate for street driving, provided you are running stock diameter bars.
In the meantime. disconnect one of the drop links and see if the vibration goes away.
Bill K

175K911 · 08-20-2018, 04:29 PM

I have run the stock part on several Carreras over the past 30 years, but I weld on a triangulation piece. Think of the stock part as a paper clip that you bend back and forth until it finally breaks. Weld a short piece of metal triangulating back to the chassis and it’ll never break again.

88911coupe · 08-20-2018, 04:49 PM

Ed, can you provide a little detail on the triangular piece you referred to?
Thanks

chrismorse · chrismorse's Garage

When I inherited my dad's 74 coupe, the right rear bar mount was gone, from the looks of the remnant, it had fatigued. I am guessing that the left mount was also fatigued, but not yet yet broken, so Schneiders shop in Santa Barbara just cut off the failing mount.
Dad ordered the car with carrera bars, 20 & 18 mm, but he was a "low force driver".
I am an "enthusiastic" driver, so I really wanted to get this fixed and do it right. I went with the Wevo and had my mechanic buddy, who is also an excellent welder, grind offf all of the old mounts, shoot all of the bare metal with weld through primer and weld on the Wevo bar mounts. We installed a used 18 mm bar and new drop links and this really tightened up the handling of the car, also primed, painted and under coated the repairs.
The mid year cars have a lot of rear bar mount failures, more so with bigger bars. The Wevo parts are beefy and will get the job done.
Do it right and do it once- wevo gets it done.

Bona Fortuna,
Chris

Quicksilver · 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkreigsr

To answer your question, the factory mounts are adequate for street driving, provided you are running stock diameter bars.
In the meantime. disconnect one of the drop links and see if the vibration goes away.
Bill K

The factory came up with an upgraded version because the original mounts were tearing out of the cars. The upgraded factory version is not really adequate if the car is driven hard for a lot of miles. (Yeah, at 245K miles the upgraded factory mount that Andial installed ripped out again.)

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The WEVO RARB Console is a serious upgrade from the factory mount but I like the Jerry Woods mount much better. It can be mounted a bit higher in the car and the extra ground clearance makes a difference with adjustable swaybars.

Found these pictures of the JWE mounts on an old classified forum post...

monkeyodeath · 08-21-2018, 03:12 PM

Yeah, I like the Jerry Woods design. Seems better to just move the mount away from the thin sheet metal.

I wonder if this one might be a little easier to weld up, too? I have a MIG and a bit of welding experience.

Cory M · 08-22-2018, 07:13 AM

I was concerned about the differences in material thickness between the cast Wevo mount and the body sheetmetal, but the Wevo mount welded on super easy. As long as you clean the area well it's no issue.

For the guy asking about the "triangular piece" search Pelican for "sway bar mount reinforcement" or gusset. There are templates you can download and some suppliers may still sell the little sheetmetal piece. It's a pretty simple part to make. I've still had a mount fail with this reinforcement, it basically ripped off the body, but this was on a track car with stiff bars. The reinforced mounts are much stiffer and stronger than stock and work fine for most.

steely · 08-23-2018, 07:20 AM

I just got the bolt-on mounts (Kit 65-215676-1) from Weltmeister today - they'll get me back on the road and buy me some time.

monkeyodeath · 08-23-2018, 10:46 PM

Cory M, did you find it difficult to weld onto the galvanized frame?

I have a decent MIG welder at home and am pretty tempted to just do this myself since it doesn't look like rocket science.

Cory M · 08-24-2018, 06:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by monkeyodeath

Cory M, did you find it difficult to weld onto the galvanized frame?

I have a decent MIG welder at home and am pretty tempted to just do this myself since it doesn't look like rocket science.

It was surprisingly easy. I've welded cages into galvenized cars and it can be challenging, but on the mounts i didn't have any issues. I was afraid of getting enough heat into the thick cast part and not burning through the thin sheetmetal, but that wasn't an issue either. Clean the area well with a grinder and go for it.

aston@ultrasw.c · aston@ultrasw.c's Garage

when cleaning a weld area go slowly, the metal is already pretty thin and you don't want to remove more than necessary

i generally use a sanding disk rather than a grinder

that JWE mount is the best i have seen, i basically fabbed my own parts to do the same thing

you could add a gusset to the t tube to take the lateral load, then you don't need to weld on the sheet metal at all