Mount Rear Sway Bar Brackets to an Early Car

[Britain Smith]

Well, through my stuggles I have determined that at '69 chassis has a slightly different frame rail seam location than in later cars, say '72 or so. My car has the frame rail seam right on the inner edge of the rail where as on a later car the frame rail in inset by about 10mm. This poses a problem when trying to mount the rear sway bar brackets to add a bar to a car that did not come with one because the bracket has a lip on it that is suppose to fit on that 10mm lip. Therefore, I had to notch my framerail seam, mount the bracket, and strenghten it all up. Here are the pictures to explain.

You can see in this picture where I notched the frame rail in the location where the mount is going to be placed.


Here you can see the part of the mount that overlap the framerail and is suppose to but up against the frame rail seam.


I drilled a couple of holes in the mount itself to weld to the body. I also took some solid bar stock cut to about an inch and thread with m8 threads to use an re-enforcements for the mounts. I welded this in and made a piece of steel to fit around the inside of the mount and strenghten the entire thing. I would be very surprised to see this break.


Here is the additional welding to strenghten the mount.


I have since determined that early cars used a different style mount, but I have yet to come across one. I hope that this helps others who are undergoing this modification.

-Britain

[Tyson Schmidt]

Uh-oh.

The way you welded that in will result in the mounts being too far apart. Hopefully, there will be enough room on the swaybar, but it'll be very tight.

The outer edge of the mount should be flush with the vertical seam.

[Chuck Moreland]

Yup, it's bass ackwards

[vntgspd]

Unfortunately, I have to concur. I mounted the brackets to my '69 with no modifications other than strengthening of the crack-prone bracket itself.

It does appear that the brackets are mounted backwards although it is possible that you had the incorrect brackets to start with as I can't tell from the photos.

Hopefully it works. If not, some companies such as Saner make pretty affordable custom bars that might be more cost effective than reworking the mounts. Of course, then you end up with a one-of piece that kind of sucks for any subsequent owners!

[911pcars]

I trust you trial-fitted the bar after you tacked the mounts in place so there is sufficient room to mount the bar. If so, should be fine. If the mounts are facing the other way, so be it. In this case, the end result is what's important. You may have strengthened the mount by notching the chassis and provided more area to weld.

If everything is okay to this point, I'd continue and add some reinforcement to the bracket as suggested in other threads (see archives).

Sherwood

[Britain Smith]

Hold on a second...I am confused. Can someone post a picture of what they believe that it is supposed to look like? Unless I was smoking crack at the time, the way that I mounted the bracket is exactly to same as three other cars that I looked at. Here are a couple of pics I found quickly...





Remember, I closed in the open side of the brackets with a plate to strenghten the bracket.

-Britain

[vntgspd]

Based on the latest photos, I'd say you started with the later (incorrect) brackets. However, looks like the general location of the flange is in about the right spot so there may be no problem at all.

Before worrying any more about it, I'd fit a bar or at least measure the width to see that the stock bar is wide enough to clear the brackets when mounted.

Good Luck!

[Tyson Schmidt]

The problem is that the '72 and later cars are thicker to the inside. So if you line the mount up flush to the inside of the early chassis, it will be too far outboard.