Hello , I have a 1970 Mustang and I live in Brazil , and my car is without the front sway bar so I wanted to take a course with you ! Here in Brazil in 1970 mustang parts are rare to find but we have enough pieces of maverick v8 302 to buy and I wonder if that front sway bar serves the maverick mustang 1970 302. If you serve easily buy it here in my country .. Thank you
I would like to present my findings upon installing a 64-66 1" mustang swaybar by Addco, for those in the future. Using the stock mount locations, the bar sits 1 to 1.5" further back than it should in relation to where the end links mount on the control arms. I had to move the mounts forward by drilling another hole, this made the angle of the end links acceptable, although not perfect. Also had to modify the end link height as others mentioned. To sum it up, it works, but an ideal situation would be to weld new metal onto the body brackets where the bar mounts to move the sway bar forward. I love the way it improved handling over the stock 11/16 front bar. Car no longer feels like a boat taking a turn, I definitely intend on putting the stock bar on the rear when I get the time.
No, I intend to make the front bar work on the rear, I realize some fabrication/modification to the subframe is necessary, but that's fine with me. 11/16 is very close to the 3/4" Addco offers anyway
With a 1" front bar I wouldn't go over 1/2" on the rear. You really don't need a rear sway bar on a leaf spring car. Most road race vintage Mustangs go with aluminum or poly front spring bushing.
I've read so many mixed results about rear sway bars on these cars it's hard to know what to think. However I can say the rear definitely needs some stiffening up. I'm going to put some new 4-leaf springs on and go from there, if there is still excessive body roll in the rear as there is now, I'll go ahead and put on a bar, once the mounts are fabbed up I can always downsize if necessary.
I suspected that's where you were going with it but didn't want to make assumptions. I'll be interested to see how it works out.
i wonder if this would work: ADDCO#020-549KSway Bar Kit 1964-66 Mustang Front Bar: 1-1/8" Diameter Rear Bar: 3/4" Diameter
I wasn't able to find anything on anyone else installing a mustang rear...best thing would be to find someone who has one and hold it up under the car, or compare it to the front one to see if it works. I heard some people had rubbing issue with the larger mustang bar (mine is close to the passenger strut rod so perhaps that is where they are talking about)
This is a common geometry mismatch when using those bars. Others have posted pic's showing the same issue in the past. I would heavily caution against just drilling more holes into an already known to be weak by design(for high-performance driving..especially with bigger stickier front tires) lower control arm due to the fact that there would be no radius/rolled edge to help strengthen it and avoid future cracks from forming. Also not tough to imagine that there could be a stress induced "connecting of the dots" in extreme torsional loading situations. Moving the bars chassis mounting points would be the wiser way to go. Also keep in mind that an aftermarket chromoly bar would blow away the torsional stiffness of any old factory bar of similar sizing. A thicker one would blow it away. The issue you will likely run into with retrofitting the Mustangs rear bar to the Maverick is the rear frame rail width is narrower causing it to overshoot the rails on both sides which will force you into making custom brackets. And while those brackets wouldn't be all that hard to fabricate.. the bigger issue is that they will encroach into the rear wheel wells and be nearing the tires rear sidewalls. Even ignoring the safety issues.. running deeper offsets with bigger rear meats would make such a mod impossible.
Good to know other have experienced it, my tires are tiny up front (215's) and i moved the chassis mounting points, not the end link points, but yes additional reinforcements at the chassis mount locations would be good for auto crossers.
Oops.. sorry, my bad. On the reread I see the clear english used about reholing the mounts themselves.. not the end links. Seen others make that dangerous mistake and sometimes assume too much as I speed read through posts. Keep us posted about the rear bar mod's if you do actually end up fabricating that front bar into place back there.
What if instead of drilling new holes in the lower control arm, the bottom bolt-on part of these end links were welded to the lower control arm in the appropriate spot to allow a Granada sway-bar? Or would an extra inch outboard decrease the leverage of the lower arm against the sway bar too much? Moving outboard would also give it a bigger arc of movement for the same amount of suspension travel, I think.
Why not find a 7/8" sway bar from a Maverick or use the early Mustang sway bar if the 7/8" is too small. I'm no engineer but I feel the Granada bar is too wide for our car and no telling what you will find inside the can of worms you will be getting into if you did get it to fit. I do know when I tried the Granada sway bar on my 60 Falcon, the way the bar is bent it either hit the frame rail or strut rod when the front end came down between gear change and the car darted to the right enough to make you think you might be having the front seat surgically removed...the bar also was rubbing the lower radiator hose. I ended up buying a Mustang bar for my Falcon which was about 3/4" wider than the Falcon sway bar.
^^ What he said, even the mustang addco sway bar I used comes really close to hitting the strut rods, anything wider would almost certainly hit. I'll try to remember to post here when I install the rear bar!
