NEWB rear sway bar question

Please forgive me, I read thru so many posts on this I cant remember all of it. It is a REAR swaybar from a crown vic and not a front one? what year CV are the best?

Rear. I do not think it matters, just look for one that is a larger diameter. Probably from a police car.

92 to 2000

I used the large bar from a 99 Crown Vic.

The "Police Car" uses the smaller bar so look for Civi versions if you want the big one.

94Woody wrote:

92 to 2000

I used the large bar from a 99 Crown Vic.

The "Police Car" uses the smaller bar so look for Civi versions if you want the big one.

thanks!

94Woody wrote:

92 to 2000

I used the large bar from a 99 Crown Vic.

The "Police Car" uses the smaller bar so look for Civi versions if you want the big one.

is this what it should look like?

I think I read any CV with rear air ride is the ones to look for.

They look like this........



Yes, Andebe, mine was pulled from a car with Air Ride.

94Woody wrote:

They look like this........



Yes, Andebe, mine was pulled from a car with Air Ride.

Mine is the same. I think the largest is on the airbag cars. Mine also came off of a Mercury Grand Marquis that had bags. Take a 20mm wrench with you into the yard. If the open end will not slide over the bar it is the largest. BTW the police cars have the smaller bar.

Finding the 21mm or larger bar would be like finding a Unicorn for me!  I was at a yard yesterday taking a rear sway bar off a 9C1 caprice sedan and then it dawned on me it may not be correct for the wagon so a call to Fred K. confirmed that (Thank you Fred for always taking my calls!).  So off I go to the Ford section and checked the 90's/2000's Crown Vics, Town cars and Grand marquis.  15 cars....all under 18mm.  So I thought I would take the long drive to another yard to check the Fords...14 more and all smaller so off to the last yard which had about 17 cars to check and not one large bar in the bunch!

I like the Addco 650 but the cheapest price online I can find is $185 with the bushings and links.  Just too pricey for what it is.

I continue on my Unicorn hunt.

my guess is any rear bar would be better than none. the improvement between no bar and a 17mm bar would be very noticeable. the improvement from a 17mm up to a 21mm not so much.

I get the bigger is better mentality we all have, but trying to make a 5,000+ pound wagon handle like a sub 4,000 pound car is somewhat of a fools errand.

I must have been extremely lucky to find the 21mm bar on the 15th car I checked. I have not found one since then on the 30 or so cars I have looked at.

Once you see a 21mm, you will immediately recognize it, because it is substantially larger then the 17mm.

A 4mm difference should make a noticeable difference, because the diameter multiplies the rigidity of the bar. A 21mm bar should be about twice as strong as a 17mm. If you are into pizza, you can compare the medium and large pizzas, and you find that you get almost twice as much pizza with a large compared with a medium. The same ratio applies to the cross section of the anti-roll bar.

a 21mm bar will have a cross section area of 346mm a 17mm bar would have a cross section area of 227mm
or roughly 50% larger. without getting into metallurgy, bending inertia, FEA or anything like that yes a 21mm bar would be roughly 50% stiffer or less likely to flex.

IMO they are both 10,000% better than no bar at all.

around here I would have to travel about 25 miles in any direction to find a junkyard. if one could find a sway bar it would most likely be $50.

I haven't looked lately but the new bar listed at rock auto was less than $100

yeah I would rather have a bigger bar. but I am not going to beat myself up looking for one. that's just me YMMV

I bought my large CV sway bar new for 33 bucks from what someone here posted.Just cant remember from where I ordered it.

I'd be in the market for the large Panther bar, if anyone finds one.

I'd check that Rock-auto listing - - I think that may be the front bar.

The  JY around here has had nothing...the only bar even close is on a boxy Caprice sedan (wouldn't work for this particular mod).
But the JY parts-finders on the internet are full of 17-18mm Panther bars, shipped for around $50-60 total.

Looks like that's what I'll do if I get to this mod before I find a large bar.

I hadn't thought of the pizza analogy.

Suddenly MUCH more excited about my 35mm Hotchkis rear bar.

Stingroo wrote:

I hadn't thought of the pizza analogy.

Suddenly MUCH more excited about my 35mm Hotchkis rear bar.

Your Hotchkis bar is mounted differently, and is much longer. The differences may make it about equal in effectiveness.

I don't know if I just searched differently today, or of the supply is just coming back, but the Addco Panther bars seem to be on the market again (I thought they were all gone).
The Addco 650 (1 inch) lists for $188.00, the 2271 (1 1/8 inch) for $265 on Jeggs, Summitt etc (Jeggs predicts May/June shipping dates).

A1 lists a "Heavy duty" Marauder bar at about $150, but doesn't specify diameter.

I am confused at the listing for the Dorman bar, which is listed in various places as 1", but the same Dorman part# on Rock-auto says it is 5/16". Either way it is $105.
It may be that Dorman claims this will be a "Replacement" for a 1" bar owing to solid construction.

All this is a bit pricey for me. I suspect I'll get an 18mm bar, available on various junkyard parts-finders for $50 shipped. I'll be doing new rear springs and shocks at the same time, and not doing front suspension this year

SO I'm with Fllntstone: Compared to no rear bar, this'll be good, plus I wouldn't want to push too far past the old front suspension.
Gotta leave something for the next round.
Saving my pennies for more important body and paint work to make my car more presentable.

I installed the 1 inch bar on Crovo's wagon at mod day last weekend. I believe it was the Addco version, it came with end links. Easy install, one trick I found that I apparently forgot about since doing mine is to install the bar with the car at ride height, basically jack it up and put jack stands under the axle. Everything lines up perfect once you do this.

MalibuSSwagon wrote:

I installed the 1 inch bar on Crovo's wagon at mod day last weekend. I believe it was the Addco version

Seeing your work on that wagon (you were done long before I arrived) closed the sale for me.
Despite the excellent write-ups with pictures etc. in all three forums, I was still unclear on this mod (drill frame? muffler clamps? Huh?)
But seeing it in person made it all make sense, both why it is so simple, and why it would work so well. I guess I needed the full 3-d visual aid.
Ordering a bar from the internet junkyard in the morning, shopping the various link and bushing options, and doing it on the cheap.
3rd on my priorities list, after I get the seats back in and diagnose (mebee even fix) my oil leak.

Not to jack Fred's thread, but my adventures finding a 21mm Marauder bar have taken a negative turn.
The internet junkyard parts-finder sites (plural) have not been dependable.
Fortunately I'm in no hurry to do this mod (other projects first).
The first 4 yards I called which advertised 21mm bars each eventually admitted they didn't have one. The next took my order and never sent one (or charged my card), admitting when I called two weeks later that they didn't have one.
The last charged my card and shipped me a 15mm bar. Today they apologised, credited my account, and told me not to bother sending the little bar back.
So now I have a (free) 15mm panther bar.
I'm thinking to go with Flintstone's conclusion that some bar is better than none. The bar is part of a larger rear-end project (springs, shocks, hitch, rust treatment, etc.), so I think I'll stop wasting time looking for the bigger bar for now.
Once the mod is done, upgrading when a bigger bar finds me should be simple, the only cost will be bigger bushings.

Yeah a free one!! Wohoo! Put it on and keep searching. You should just have to swap the bushing if/when you find one.

I,ve had wagons with bars,. without bars,. 9c1 bars,. herb adams bars,.

You really have to throw the car hard to appreciate a really big bar,.

90% of the wagon owners i have met never get anywhere near their cars outer limits,.

For reference i have posted some good track times in a wagon that had no suspension mods other than some good shocks and a some 3:73's with no posi,.,

I,ve had other wagon owners try and keep up ,..

You can buy all the biggest and the best parts,. but if you don't utilize them,. it basically just becomes bragging rights,.

i.e My panther bar is bigger than your panther bar,..pfffttt.

I'm guessing this isn't the first time you've explained that size doesn't matter

but seriously, thanks for the affirmation.
I'm not planning to autocross, just looking for a little less twisty-float on my winding mountain roads.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not above making mods I don't really "Need," or buying performance parts when the service part will suffice.  Fact is, I don't "Need" this car at all.  It is just more fun than not having it. Same with the mods.

It really depends on how much money I have burning a hole in my pocket on a given day.

Checking my pockets today:  This "Free" bar is timely.
I figured the whole sway-bar mod at $100.
Now it should be less than the price of a couple of airport cocktails

802 wrote:

I'm guessing this isn't the first time you've explained that size doesn't matter

and stiffness relative to size too,.. Er,.. wait,.......... what?

802 wrote:

Now it should be less than the price of a couple of airport cocktails

As tim said so eloquently,.

wu hu !,.( < canadian spelling)

seriously tho, any rear bar will make a big improvement,.

Nick Im guessing your a believer in the old pharse,"Gotta drive like you stole it"? Ive beat many a faster car,simply because they are afraid to push it. Always puts a smile on my face to see that expression of how did he do that,in that? Lol...Sadly the OCC,will not be surprising anybody any time soon.

Found my Unicorn today! After many, many months of checking at the yards (about once a month) today I finally found a 21mm bar! So cool. I road trip through the mountains and there is a fair amount of switchback driving that this new bar should help with.

For those of you that have done this, what length endlinks did you purchase? I know from speaking with Fred K. that the bar needs to be kept fairly level at ride height.

By the way, I got the bar from a 93 Mercury Grand Marquis and interestingly it did NOT have the air suspension that many other posts said to look for.

I used the stock length Ford endlinks, they were brand new on the car I got my bar from, so of course I snagged them and they worked out fine.