Sway bar pics or ideas?

[builtfercomfort]

Does anyone have any pictures of stock or aftermarket sway bars on your car? I just installed Charlie's disc brakes on my 39 Chrysler - he did all the work on the brakes (Thanks Charlie!) and I started to install them yesterday. The bolt that holds the flexible brake line to the caliper hits the vertical part of the sway bar, so the sway bar will need reworking, and I am looking for ideas. What do newer car's sway bars look like, and are there any from different years, makes, or models that could be made to work?

(Pictures are clickable for full resolution version)

Sway bar with brakes installed, from the front, wheel at stop:

Interference problem, from the front, wheel is almost straight forward:

[greg g]

Is the steering straight ahead in the botom pic? Does it still interfere when the car is on the ground? Looks like the only time it will bother other wise is at full lock and full rebound. I would check it with the car on the ground and with sombody sitting in the driver's seat.

[Plymouthy Adams]

have you tried to do a "search the forum" ??? type in sway bar...

Mine used to be the same as yours is now..

 

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Plymouthy Adams

[builtfercomfort]

Thanks Tim -

I did search, and I had read your sway bar post before but I did not really understand it - must have been tired because it's fairly clear in the light of day :-) Do you have any pictures of the mounting details for your Sunbeam sway bar?

I'll look and see if I can route it like yours - it also looks like a stock '49 or so one would work, the sway bar itself goes to the holes in the lower spring mount, not to a strange 6-inch high round vertical piece like mine - that's the part that hits the brakes.

[Plymouthy Adams]

49-52 similar but will not mount proper..tried this first...mounts are for narrow frame extensions if my memory serves me correct.

[Norm's Coupe]

Why not move the hard line and bracket mounting for it. Then possibly use a different length flexible brake line to compensate. Seems like that would move the flexible line away sway bar. Would be a lot easier than matching a different sway bar to the car.

[Young Ed]

Norm its the other end of the flex line he's having issues with. Wonder could you swap calipers left and right to reposition the line?

[Plymouthy Adams]

Now that you mention it Ed, my calipers are bolted to the rear of the wheel...

[Young Ed]

Perhaps a PM to Charlie is needed to have him look this over.

[PatS....]

I may be wrong, hard to tell on the pic but is the caliper mounted towards the rear of the car? On the trailing side of the spindle?

It looks like on the pic that the caliper is on the front or leading side of the spindle.

Charlie's kit calls for the caliper to be to the rear of the spindle...as does the PlyDo kit.

[Norm's Coupe]

I may be wrong, hard to tell on the pic but is the caliper mounted towards the rear of the car? On the trailing side of the spindle?

It looks like on the pic that the caliper is on the front or leading side of the spindle.

Charlie's kit calls for the caliper to be to the rear of the spindle...as does the PlyDo kit.

My ECI kit has the calipers on the rear too. Maybe he mounted the brackets on the wrong wheels.

[builtfercomfort]

Calipers are at the front of the wheel. If they should be at the back I'll need to talk to Charlie :-) - he did the assembly for me. Nothing that can't be undone I guess. That really makes more sense now that I think of it.

[builtfercomfort]

I've emailed Charlie about whether the calipers should be on the front or back - I hope it can stay on the front (thus no rework), it looks like it can except for the sway bar issue. Charlie's been great with advice, and remember that my 39 is just a little different from the more common post-war cars.

Tim, do you have a close-up picture of one side of the Sunbeam sway bar mounting? Seems like that would be the way for me to go, not so happy with the size or condition of the 68-year old stock sway bar.

Thanks, all!

[Plymouthy Adams]

PM coming your way...

PS...Mine was not moved due to brakes etc..mine was moved so to mount the radiator, AC condensor/oil cooler forward of the radiator shell due to big block mopar in bay...

[builtfercomfort]

Charlie wrote me back, he says that the brakes can go on either the front or back - the back can cause steering clearance issues. I could swap them and clear the sway bar but perhaps cause other issues. I'll have to look at it some more.

One of the best bits of advice when working with these old cars was to sit and study for a while. Ford had the best assembly lines and could make the cars efficiently, GM had the best marketers, but Walter P. had the best engineers. You have to get inside their 70-year-old heads and try to figure out what they were thinking when they designed it. That's my task now - and to see what I can do to make it better (power disc brakes) with the help of this fine forum.

Thanks,

-- Tom