Ford sway bar on a B-body Wagon

I got a rear sway bar off a '96 Lincoln Town Car from a JY last Oct. and I am just getting to it today. This mod was cheap, ($75.00 in parts) and easy. If any of you are thinking about doing this, do it, it's fantastic, even with the small 11/16" bar I used. The rest of the suspension on my car is stock, but this rear bar makes the car much less dramatic in the curves. It's still no slot car, but it feels nice. I've only driven it for 70 miles with the bar on so far, so I don't know any of the long term problems with this set up, if any. I drove it back up on the ramps tonight to check things out, and so far so good. I've got the factory air shocks, and a Pypes cat back Street Pro x pipe system on the car and every thing has plenty of clearance, except the heat shields right in front of the gas tank. They come close to the sway bar, some one may have issues with a larger bar here. In the pictures I don't have the OTA pipes on the car, but I did when installing the bar and driving for a little bit. I'm going to try shorter (1 5/8") sway bar links to get the bar ends more parallel to the frame mount, I used 2 3/8" links.

FYI: After 800 miles on the Ford sway-bar it still works good, but the exhaust clamps don't hold it in
place. The exhaust clamps get rotated up into the rear brake lines, so I think modified leaf spring
perches welded to the rear axle would be best to mount the bar. The exhaust clamp set up still works,
but could work better, maybe welding the exhaust clamps would help.

Welding the exhaust clamps sound like a good idea, and it is cheap, because you already have them in place.

was just checking things out, this is a neat idea, wonder what other sway bars would fit.(larger dia. bar) iirc doesn't the car need to be sitting on the ground and then tighten up all the fasteners

I was looking at your pics again, and noticed that the standoff mounting points are looking a little Swiss Cheesy, or are they just lightening holes?

Hey Fred those are definitely lightening holes since every little bit helps.Those extra holes
probably took off at least 1 or 2 grams of unsprung weight.Remember the "Swiss Cheese
Pontiacs" from the early 60s.What were they called Starchiefs?Cant remember rite now.
Always wondered if those exhaust clamps were going to be able to stay put with all that
tension on them.
Great Pics and Idea
Jim Gordon

2 of the holes were already there, just smaller. I drilled them all out at once while I was under there with a drill not knowing what hole I would end up using for the links. The inner hole on the left side of the car was indeed a lighting hole.... or an error, what ever you want to call it.

The Ford rear bar is still a great addition to these wagons, makes a nice difference, and is inexpensive.

So when I modified my exhaust my Impala SS sway bar would no longer work. So I looked for another direction. With the post on the forum I found 6 different Crown Vic bars. 4 factory bars at 17mm, 17.8mm, 19mm and 21mm. Then 2 Addco bars at 1" and 1 1/8". The Addco bars run $159 on ebay for the samller bar. I decided if I could find a 21mm factory bar I would go that direction. Scored at the first place that I stopped. A full size Mercury with air suspension was the donor car. Used the stock bushings (for now), shortened a set of front end sway bar mounts from our cars, with the use of some 5" grade 8 bolts. And re-used some body mount sway bar brackets I had for another bar. Presto a new sway bar is on the car. Seems to work great, just a little better than my old set up.

Modified some 3" pipe clamps to make the Energy brackets work with the stock bushings.


IMG]https://2img.net/h/i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn152/97blazerman/Wagon%20Pictures/Sway%20bar/P4210391.jpg[/IMG]

Jacked the rear of the car.


Enlarged the holes (actually did them a little bigger after a test fit).


bolted it up.


Measured the length I wanted for the end links, I supporting the car on the axle to give me a neutral front/rear bias (as much as possible when the front it not on jack stands.

Looks great, Tim! Nice work!

Thanks Bill. But John is upset because I did not powdercoat all the parts prior to installation!!

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

Thanks Bill. But John is upset because I did not powdercoat all the parts prior to installation!!

but if it were a hot rod you would have right?

buickestate wrote:

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

Thanks Bill. But John is upset because I did not powdercoat all the parts prior to installation!!

but if it were a hot rod you would have right?

NOW your speaking my language!!! Getting wheel hope now. I think taking the adapters out of the inside of the control arms is letting them flex..... Need to box a set in!!

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

is your rear end leaking?

buickestate wrote:

is your rear end leaking?

I noticed that!!! I guess I will have to pick up an aluminum cover to fix it.....

tims rear end always has something leaking out of it

I obviously have to watch where I stand when you are around.

mtrhead79 wrote:

tims rear end always has something leaking out of it

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

I obviously have to watch where I stand when you are around.

Interesting how you tolerate johns comment,and return the fun,.. yet my little comment about sausage eating and you get all pissy,and call me out as the devil as usual.

Must be because john works on your car, .

Nick

phantom 309 wrote:

mtrhead79 wrote:

tims rear end always has something leaking out of it

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

I obviously have to watch where I stand when you are around.

Interesting how you tolerate johns comment,and return the fun,.. yet my little comment about sausage eating and you get all pissy,and call me out as the devil as usual.

Must be because john works on your car, .

Nick

Sometimes we develop reputations, and they follow us around. There are other times that we become weary of some things in our lives as well. We all learn the appropriate times for specific types of humor, and sometimes we learn it with great difficulty. Learning is a wonderful thing, especially if we can learn from others before we make mistakes ourselves.

Fred Kiehl wrote:

phantom 309 wrote:

mtrhead79 wrote:

tims rear end always has something leaking out of it

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

I obviously have to watch where I stand when you are around.

Interesting how you tolerate johns comment,and return the fun,.. yet my little comment about sausage eating and you get all pissy,and call me out as the devil as usual.

Must be because john works on your car, .

Nick

Sometimes we develop reputations, and they follow us around. There are other times that we become weary of some things in our lives as well. We all learn the appropriate times for specific types of humor, and sometimes we learn it with great difficulty. Learning is a wonderful thing, especially if we can learn from others before we make mistakes ourselves.

So true Fred,.
learning market pricing and sales for internet commerce is in itself quite a lesson,. some folks never get it.

I really do not find jokes about breaking wind on the scale with the other humor. If others though so, you have my apologies. John scores no additional points for helping on my car but maybe due to the fact that we spend time together I know John well and would put up with more from a close friend. No offence to anyone else on this forum.

As Fred states, sometimes one's reputation proceeds them.

sorry if i offended anyone. i felt i know tim well enough and hang out with him enough that he knows i dont mean any harm and that i am just joking around

mtrhead79 wrote:

sorry if i offended anyone. i felt i know tim well enough and hang out with him enough that he knows i dont mean any harm and that i am just joking around

No sorry's necessary for me!!!!

BigBlackBeaSSt wrote:

As Fred states, sometimes one's reputation proceeds them.

Amen.

mtrhead79 wrote:

I felt i know tim well enough and hang out with him enough that he knows i dont mean any harm and that i am just joking around

We all are,.


Nique,.

DORMAN Part # 927159, 25mm Mercury Marauder rear bar, Rock Auto has 'em for $105 + shipping.
Comes with the bar bushings, and links. Those may or may not work, but if they do it'll save you a little cash.

This was fun thread...and useful to boot. Win-win!

Nice find Mike! May have to get one to replace the 17mm bar on the OCC now. FYI I used the stock Ford end links since the donor car had new ones on it, and I mounted the bar on the bottom of the axle. Need to shorten the end links as the middle of the bar contacts the diff cover once in a while.

Spoke too soon. Looks like it's 15.3mm. Rock Auto lists it as 25mm (1"), but the actual Dorman site lists that part # as 15.3mm. Sorry for the false hope.

For the last few months I've been searching the yards for the 21mm Panther rear sway bar for my wagon. I checked about 25 cars today and came up empty handed again. I have a 17/19mm open ended wrench that I've been keeping in my box just for sizing them. I found lots of 17mm bars, several that were under 17, and a few that were somewhere between 17mm and 19mm. There were 4 other cars there that were already missing their bars. I'm starting to think these were the ones with the big bars and that's why they're missing. I've been trying to figure out the rhyme and reason to what size bar a certain car got. The cars with green silicone cooling hoses all had 17mm bars. Presumably they're Interceptors or taxis. I've been kinda hopeful looking under some of the Mercurys that have air ride but many of them have the 17 or 18mm bar too. Maybe persistence will finally pay off someday.

In the mean time I've been wondering if the big bar is appropriate for a stock ride height, 75 series tires, stock front bar, daily driver wagon? Would one of the smaller bars be worth the effort? Not looking to win any AutoX's but being able to charge on-ramsp with a little more authority would be nice.

P.S. found two air compressors today and neither of them would even blow up a latex balloon. A manual fill for my shocks might be in my future

Any bar is better than no bar. The bar does not care what size tires you have, and it does not know what your ride height is. Just use standoffs that make it parallel to the ground when you are at your desired ride height.

Most compressors will be seized, because they ran incessantly after the bag(s) broke.

I checked the CrownVic forum and the mentions there are that the 21mm bar is rare and only came on HPP cars. HPP seems to stand for Handling and Performance Package and included dual exhaust and the rear air suspension with black cones under the black rear air bags rather than the standard cream color cones under the black air bags. Seems lots of the members of that forum have used Addco rear sway bars to replace the smaller stock rear bar.

I must be lucky. I found a 21mm bar on the 15th car I looked at.

Fred Kiehl wrote:

I must be lucky. I found a 21mm bar on the 15th car I looked at.

Nice score Fred !

The other side to that is; I have not seen one since then.

Finally got around to mounting the sway bar today. Picked up some axle leaf spring perches as they are wider then the muffler clamp and went to a friends shop and he welded them to the axle for me.

The drive home was unbelievably different! The wagon took corners and sweeping turns nice and flat. It was nice to have the feel of control taking corners rather than that normal large list.

Here are what the perches looked like...


And the installed bushings to the welded perches...


Used the end links and bushings reccomend by others doing this mod and all seemed to be a factory-like fitment. Here are the numbers (for 21mm bar);

Energy Suspension End Links - 9.8125
Energy Suspension Greaseable Sway Bar Bushing set - 9.5157

I was poking around a u pull yard today, i needed an a/c compressor for the slinkin,..
We scooped one off a 2000 crown vic civvy car,.real nice too,.

It had a sway bar on the back,.i grabbed my 19mm wrench and the bar was way thicker than that,.

So,. i took it off and bought it home,...

Pm me if you want it,.

I believe from what I was told my 95 Caprice was the first to get this Ford sway bar as the previous owner Rick from the other forum pasted his findings about this bar!  

Update here. So far so good. Maybe it is my OCD, but, end links for some may need to be shorter. On the wagon I added this setup to, i have factory springs and Monroes HD shocks. installed the setup with the axle brackets clocked so that they are parallel with ground. This is important to ensure that as the bar moves it does not slam the pumpkin or the gas tank. That being said, to me the most crucial item is the length of the end links.

So far the consensus on the boards has been to use 2 3/8" long endlinks. This forces the ends down and puts the end links in the bar at a very steep angle downward. You are then mashing the bushings to get the end links to work. Ideally 1 5/8" long end links are best as it keeps the bar ends parallel with ground/wagon...however, you will not have proper clearance to jack up a rear side to do tire change as the bar will hit axle.

I found the compromise of 2" long end links. They keep ends of the bar fairly high/level and you have clearance to jack the rear for tire changes and not have the bar touch the axle.

Food for thought for future installers of this awesome setup.

Getting ready to put one on my wagon, just the 17mm. After some years of use, are you still happy with the mod, what size links work best? I have the bar, need the bushings and links. Any preference for rubber or poly? I'm thinking poly should stiffen it up a little bit.

Thanks

Tom

I just removed the factory front 28mm bar and 17mm Crown Vic bar I had put in shortly after I got my RMW in 2013 and replaced them with the Hotckkiss latest version matched set P/N 2206. Hothckiss bars are hollow now so not so horribly heavy but bigger diameter and that made front clearance and mounting a challenge. I made very substantial mountings for the rear that also boxed the trailing arms as a bolt in. The use the factory style no link rear bar style. Hotckkiss says the hollow bars have the same roll stiffness as their old style solid bars. These are 1.437/1.375 or 36.5mm front and 35.0mm rear which shows just how much rear bar the wagon needs to get to near neutral.

They have been very good, IMO. Very minor less ride quality in single wheel bumps with stock springs and ride height. Handling and directional stability both improved. Even with 17mm rear bar I still needed 4 psi more front pressure than rear to get near neutral handling and no I can run 30psi both ends without and be good.

Hothckiss has been in perpetual 6 month wait for a long time but I happened to stumble on a dealer that showed on. It was actually at a distributor andt was actually was there and not an inventory glitch. Also was discounted so even better, but they are still very expensive. Well worth it to me as it makes the wagon feel like half it's weight.