Well, my buddy was cleaning out his garage, and alot of the stuff going out was scrap metal. I decided to hold on to a piece of pipe that looked like it was good for a wonder bar.

Here is the question. The pipe is 32.5" long, and 1" OD. The wall thickness is about 1/8" on the ruler. Is this piece sufficient length to get between the sway bar bushings?

Also, what thickness do you use to make the tabs? I was thinking of some like 3/16 plate or something, not too sure tho.

Thanks

 

Myself, I would use 90 degree "angle iron" for the mounts, to have 2 places to weld to the tube, instead of trying to weld under both edges of the tube, to a flat piece..

Mine is a factory wonder bar, so I'm not sure how much extra thread length there is for mount thickness, or the distance between the 2 bushings is.

I've been wanting to take it off, and measure it to build one.

 

well, I crawled under there to see, and the tube should be plenty long. I went to home depot, and got a 3' by 2" piece of flat that is 3/16" thick. Pretty heavy stuff. I cant wait for daylight tomorrow to start measuring and working on it.

This is gonna be my first real metal project. I am gonna get it all cut and drilled, then I will go to my buddys house to weld it with his mig. I cant wait to learn how to weld. The only other thing I have welded were some patch panels on a suburban. But that was thin sheet, and I burned right through a few times.

 

there not that expensive spohn sells them for like $60 probably be easier than fabin your own

 

Short of the powder coating & CNC/water jet cutting, its like what? $10?? $15? Worth of metal?

WAY too simple to home build.

 

Id make your own thats what i plan on doing.. why would you pay the $60 when you can easily make it for like $10...if your able to make it your self that is....


Its like going to a gas station and paying $3.00 and 3 miles down the road is $2.50... you just have to go a little out of your way and take some time out of your busy life.

 

the cost of the metal, at a supply, would be about 5bux. As for making it yourself. If you can, do it. Its fun, and you get the satisfaction of making it yourself. Gives you something to do on a cold boring day.
go for it!

 

yes defently

 

Well, I almost had my wonder bar. I borrowed a chop saw from someone, and used some 3/16 by 2" flat stock from home depot to make the tabs. I drilled the holes, just 2 holes on either side. I didnt have enough metal to use a 3rd bolt. So I designed it to sit under just the sway bar bushings.

I bolted the 2 plates in under the car, and cut the pipe to the correct length. Then, I used my little die grinder to cut the slots in the pipe.

That is where the problem lies. I cut the slots wrong!

 

If you do a search here, someone posted a pic of a homemade version. Basically the same thing you did. Two plates and a bar stock.

Thats how i made mine, i used a MIG wire welder from Harbor Freight and welded the plate steel to the bar stock with some nice welds.

Thats the easy part, making the holes line up is the FUN part....

 

Looks like its your lucky day, this thread has more than just the Wonderbar:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fabr...-you-have.html

 

I dont need the dimensions - I had it all fitted to my actual car while it was on ramps.

What I need is to find a place that sells steel tubing. The piece I cut is ruined now, and home depot and lowes dont have anything near that strong.

Also, is there a trick to cutting the tube so that the slots line up on either side? I illustrated in my picture how the tabs look on the slots I cut now.

 

Look for a place like this. I did a google search, using your city/state, and this was one place that came up, but I have no idea how close it is.

The home improvement stores aren't going to have what you need. But it's likely, you'll hafta buy a full stick (10' or 20'). Unless you can find a shop that uses what you need, and will sell you just what you need. I'd get the extra & build several. You could sell the extras, to pay for the material,making yours "free".

 

measure twice cut once comes to mind now. Try to find a local steel shop and see if they will sell you a section, but it might be cheaper to cut your losses and buy one if they will only sell you 10' or longer sticks of tubing.

 

Yeah that is what I was thinking. The whold reason I was making it myself was because I cant afford to order anything else online. And the tube was free. Now, I dont have the tube, but I have the 2 plates that were alot of work to drill through and cut (3/16 plate with cordless drill) and the fit under the car, I dont want to waste them.

My buddy is gonna see if he has any scrap metal tubes lying around from his awning they took down off his back porch.

 

If you can't find any cheap steel locally then I'd check the local scrap/salvage yards. It probably won't be pretty, but it'll be cheap!

Here are some pics of the one I made a while back:









I used one 12" piece of 3/16 x 6" and 3 ft of 1" x .120 wall DOM tubing.

With the sway bar removed, I first made a cardboard template for the mounting brackets. Then I transfered that to the 3/16" plate which I cut and shaped with a jigsaw and a chop saw. I drilled the bolt holes in the plates and bolted them to the car. With the mounting plates/brackets bolted to the car, I measured for the length of the tubing. Using an elaborate system of 2x4's, elastic straps, and welding magnets, I managed to get the now cut piece of tubing in place against the 3/16" plates; and lined it up to where I wanted it positioned for welding. Making sure to first disconnect the battery - I climbed back underneath the car to tack everything together. Once I unbolted it from the car, I pulled it out and finished welding it together. After my new wonderbar had cooled down (the next day) I test-mounted it one last time before paint, and to my delight it fit like it was factory!

BTW, I painted it ford red with duplicolor's engine enamel and it came out very smooth and glossy - almost like it was powdercoated! And IIRC, I believe the final length of the tubing came out to exactly 33".


It was the first thing I MIG welded after learning on fluxcore - so it's not perfect, but I like it.

 

Did you feel a difference? Thats basically the same design as mine, except you welded the tube right to the plates. I am trying to weld the plates into slots in the tube for better strength and clearence. I just gotta cut the slots right.

Mind telling where you got the metal?? Also, does having all those extra bolts help that much, or will mine still work with just the 4 sway bar bolts??

 

That looks really good, that came out really nice. I did the same thing, welded right to the plates.

I have had my fabricated wonderbar in the car for over a year and no problem with the welds. Once i mig welded the whole thing, it got very solid.

I think cutting the tube is overkill on this project.

 

So did either of you guys notice a difference handling? I think I might just weld the tube I have on there then, maybe on the next nice day we get.

 

Yep much more stiff. I did the sway bar endlinks at the same time, with poly bushings so it was even more dramatic.

 

Well I cant figure out what size sway bars my car has, or what bushings would be best. But it really needs new busings. When I took the brackets off, one of the origional rubber bushings was broken in 2 pieces. I had to cram it back in there.

Also wondering, how do you put new bushings on the sway bars? I saw some ES poly bushings for pickups at autozone and they were split to slip over the bar. But all the bushings online for these cars are not split.

 

Oh there's a definitely a difference in handling. But I was like lucid, and did the poly sway bar bushings/endlinks at the same time.

I got the metal as part of a huge order from onlinemetals.com. All their orders over $100 are 10% off, but their shipping sucks. I've also used speedymetals.com but their tolerances suck, though their shipping is much better (probably just because of my location).

I really don't know if the extra bolt holes help or not. Yours should still work fine, I believe that's the way some of the manufactured wonderbars come, don't they?..


Thanks, man - I agree that slotting the tube is probably overkill; once I got everything welded up it became VERY stiff. The only noticeable advantage I see to cutting the slots would be clearance or possibly weight savings by allowing you to use a shorter tube (if you extend the plates inward).


I'd just use one of those cheap plastic calipers (from harbor freight) to measure the sway bars. Or you could use an adjustable wrench that has the inches/mm's written on the side. Or you could use a string to wrap around the sway bar, and make one mark across the string (where it overlaps itself) with a marker. Then take the string, lay it out longways and measure the distance between the two marks and divide that by 3.14 to find the diameter.

The bushings online probably are split, you just can't tell it from the pictures. If not then you could probably just slip them over the ends of the sway bars and slide them down or just slit them yourself.

 

well its way too cold out to do anything today or tomorrow but in a few days its supposed to get real nice out so maybe I will attempt it again in a few days. Right now its 4*F outside, high today is supposed to be like 7* or something. My car barely started today.