(Posted to Contour-L yesterday morning.)
Just wanted to shoot this out real quick since I'm sure a number of people will be installing theirs this weekend. I put mine in last night.
The instructions included with the bar are good, I'm only adding a few notes to them.
1) Tools needed: 13 and 15mm wrenches and sockets. You'll need one deep 15mm socket for the end link shaft. The fuel tank straps
are secured by 13mm bolts, one of which is behind the exhaust heat shield. For that one, a ratcheting box wrench will be very
useful. You may also find a Big Effing Hammer(bfh) helpful.
2) Dropping the tank: I had a little under a quarter tank when I did it, and there was no problem at all with lowering enough to work
with the bar. You will most likely have to completely loosen both tank strap bolts in order to get enough room. Just have a floor jack ready to support the tank when you lower it.
3) Brackets. Even with the included directions, this step can be "fun". What I ended up doing was to tap a husky brand 22mm deep impact socket into the bracket to open it up. When you do that, the "wings" of the clamp will be angled downward. Just clamp the wing with the bolt-hole tightly in a vise, then give the bottom body of the clamp a few taps with a bfh so that the wings are angled slightly upwards. The instructions already state the correct order of
installation, but I will underscore that it's much easier to work with the brackets if the end links are not attached.
A note on the brackets issue, I was a little confused before getting the kit about the optional brackets that require welding. So here's the scoop on that. When you get the kit, you will see that the bushings for the bar come in a standard sized kit with the brackets included. This kit is of a universal type, where one can upgrade to a
bar of 15/16" diameter. The brackets with this kit simply require another bolt hole just above where the front "hinge" of the stock bracket goes. So what you have to do is make up a piece of backing metal to fit the bracket, then weld the backing plate to the frame, with the one hole lined up to the existing hole, then drill a new hole for the other side of the big clamps. The instructions cover this, I'm just including it here because it's hard to understand
without all the parts in front of you. Fwiw, the included template to make the backing plate is nice, but I'd imagine most people would just use the new brackets as a template. :p
4) The "dip" in the bar is to clear the fuel tank filler line - so when you put the new bar on the car, make sure you put it in the right way. It's fun enough getting it in there without having to take it back out.
5) The end-link bushings will not fit over the shaft as is. What you'll want to do is take a small deep impact socket, and place the drive end over the bushing with the threads of the shaft coming up into the body of the socket. The other end of the shaft goes on top of something solid, like a concrete garage floor. Give it a few solid
taps with the bfh(which is why you want to use an impact socket). This will slighty "core" the bushing and push it over the shaft. You'll only need to do this for the first/top bushing on each shaft.
The bushings come with a little tube of silicon lube. I used Bel-Ray waterproof grease instead. It's been recommended here before, and seems to hold up better. It's available at finer motorcycle shops for
$4 a tub. Oh, and those people that have had squeaking problems with the ES bushings on the stock bars will like these better. That's because these Prothane bushings have grooves to hold the grease in. Those grooves held a good fingers worth of grease, fwiw.
Nice.
Overall, the installation isn't that hard - it took me several hours, but that's only because I'm slow and methodical.
In my case, the bar ends up being very slightly pre-loaded when everything is bolted down(Yes, both wheels were up on ramps). That's a good thing, as it means there will be less float before the bar starts working.
I'll post driving impressions later, but just the quick test drive revealed awesome results. The words flatter and less body roll are almost overused these days. To me, the car feels so much more "Unified". You don't wait for the car to take a set when cornering - it's already there. You just whip it in there, and she goes. I played
around a little with trying to simulate doing something stupid to make the rear end come around, and it never acted like it would. The car feels so much more solid with the reduced roll that abrupt gas/brake changes in a turn do not upset things as readily as they would with the stock bar. More on that later...
Hth,
Dan Beggs
99 Cougar V6, loud
