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Rear Sway Bar - Replacements?

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Scorpion8

Hard-core CEG'er
Joined
Jul 10, 2008
Messages
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Location
Juneau, AK
So my stock rear sway bar seems to be taking the brunt of winter road chemicals and moisture, and appears to have a lot of the diameter reduced. I'm not really looking to upgrade to a larger sway bar, as the car is just a GL daily driver. Besides the dealer (who'll only sell me an identical one that won't last long either) where or who makes good replacement sway bars for Contours? Is it worth having it powder coated before installation for corrosion reduction?
 
The problem you'll run into is that when you upgrade the bar you run the risk of breaking the subframe and not having a bar at all until its rebuilt stronger. As far as losing diameter the bar wasnt that big to begin with. Have you cleaned a spot up and measured it yet?
 
you could go with either a stock replacement, a bar from an SVT which is slightly bigger, or a BAT 19mm bar. any of those options are good choices and wont require reinforcing the subframe.
 
Scorpion8 said:
I'm not really looking to upgrade to a larger sway bar, as the car is just a GL daily driver.
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I guess I wasn't clear enough above. I know BAT makes larger diameter ones, but I searched here and they have the issue of breaking the mounts and then you get into the whole subframe issue, etc, etc, etc. The one on the car has had several significant layers of steel flake off as rust. I have not mic'ed it out, but in my engineering experience when steel starts to delaminate due to corrosion, trouble isn't far behind.

Are there any parts suppliers out there (Rock Auto and TeamFord carry sway bar mounts/bushings/etc, but not sway bars) who make either replacement stock sway bars or better-improved stockish sway bars?
 
the Bat 19mm bar wont cause any problems with the subframe. i had one on my 97 GL for several years with an unmodified subframe without any issues. its when you get to the 21mm bar that people start to have issues with the stock brackets breaking.
 
A stock sway bar can still break the subframe just as easily. It doesn't matter if the subframe and sway bar are both stock, it can still break. It happened to me, and others on the forums if you look back at some old posts.
 
so it has happened a few times, but generally running a stock sway bar (or even the BAT 19mm bar) will not break the brackets.
 
It depends on what driving conditions the car sees on a daily basis. My driveway causes my SVT to tripod almost everytime I pull in.

Any lowered Contique has stiff enough suspension to tripod easy.

If you're at stock height, then you can probably get away with any bar and not have a problem. I don't think my other stock SVT tripods in and out of the driveway.
 
CSVT1214 said:
Any lowered Contique has stiff enough suspension to tripod easy.

If you're at stock height, then you can probably get away with any bar and not have a problem. I don't think my other stock SVT tripods in and out of the driveway.
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Mine is stock road height, although me thinks the rear springs sag a tadbit. But since it's a GL I don't intend to sink huge zlotys into making it a rocket, but I do intend to keep it running as it's a great ride.
 
I'd recommend digging up a stock bar from another contour. In your case, just about any bar you can find will work well (early SE's or any SVT will be the most fun for you though, lol). Clean up the bar the best you can, and powdercoat it, or paint it with some heavy durable paint, or even have it eCoated if you have that option. melonite or tufftride might be an option, but I think you'd end up with surface cracking given the fact that a sway bar is designed to flex.
 
Thanks for all the input folks! We don't have anyplace in town that powder coats, so I'm leaning towards the BAT 19mm sway bar as it's not too much over stock and reasonably priced. With all the twisting, does anyone think that truck roll-on bedliner would be a good idea to coat/treat the sway bar before installation?
 
I'd try some spray on liner coating before I did the roll on. And remember not to spray the part where the bar clamps to the frame.
 
The BAT 19mm bar comes powder coated. after 5 years of hard driving, including winters and lots of salt, the bar still looks pretty damn good. its currently sitting in my basement so i could get some pics of it for you if you want.
 
I just did a rough calculation of the swaybar rates of an 18mm bar and a 21mm bar. I didn't measure the dimensions exactly, but an 18mm bar comes in at 278 lbs an inch, and the 21 mm bar comes in at 521 lbs an inch. These numbers could be off by just a little, but their close. No wonder why the 21mm bars are so good at breaking their mounts.
 
i actually did the exact calculations for a stock SVT bar, BAT19mm, BAT21mm, Aussie 24mm hollow, and moving the mounting point by 3/4" on a BAT19mm. unfortunately, i dont have them with me or i would post them.
 
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