Has anyone ever noticed that the front sway bar endlinks hit the bottom of the strut on full steering lock?

I'm installing the sway bar kit from Spohn and could not initially get to full lock without it hitting the strut. When it hits, it does manage to push the sway bar across the car in its bushings. The car is an 85 iroc which may be different to others due to the quick ratio steering box which I think has different endstops for the wide tyres? Also noticed that the old sway bar must have been doing the same because the mark the bushings made on the bar is wider than the bushings so it must have been sliding across whenever I got to full lock. Also the picture in the haynes manual shows damage on the strut from the endlinks hitting it.

What I'm thinking of doing to fix this is just shorten the sleeve length on the endlinks. I have already had to put a 1/4" spacer plate under the bushings that hold the swaybar to the car because the spohn bar doesn't fit my 85 iroc's wonderbar, but it looks like I'll have to take of about 3/4" to 1" of the length of the sleeve.

Does anyone see any issues in doing this? Has anyone else noticed these issues?

Si. :lala:

 

Discovered what the real problem is.....

The Spohn sway bar doesn't fit on a 3rd gen. The holes in the A arms are 44.25" apart from each other(roughly), but the Spohn bar is 45.5" (from the centre of the hole on the drivers side to the centre of the hole on the passenger side.)

Can somebody confirm my dimensions, by measuring their car, just to make sure it's not something specific to mine.

Cheers,

Si.

 

I'll do it, quick question though is that with the suspension loaded or unloaded?

 

It has the problem both loaded and unloaded. The measurement I did was unloaded though. I expect the distance to go up by about 1/4" when its loaded. If you could measure it loaded that would be fantastic. My car isn't yet in a state that I can get it fully loaded without using jacks under both a arms, which I'd rather not do.

Cheers,

Si.

 

Somebody will chip in shortly to say the endlinks take up that slack, but they don't really because the inside edge of the shock hits the top of the bar/endlink when on full steering lock. I have compared the bar to my existing iroc bar and the difference between them is massive (43mm or 1.7")

Si.

 

my 82 t/a it turns all the way until the spindle hits the stop bracket on the backside of the LCA, the TRE doesnt hit anything before hten and the sway bar endlinks dont touch anything before then and nothing touches the strut before then either,

the wheels turn VERY far, like three times as far than i would ever need to turn them, so far that when i measure from the center of the hub back to the edge of the fender wheel opening straght back across from the hub i get 11" measurement

thats driver sde and turned all the way to the left until it stops solid on the LCA bracket

i only need ot turn the steering wheel about 3 maybe 4" and im around a sharp turn easy, its very quick geared i dont evne know why GM allowed the steering to turn so damn far like it doesm you could never use all the steering radius that is avaialble on this car! you could do hella doughnuts with this car i guess, damn tiny circle i bet

its got the steering box with the four bolts and the big pitman arm

802 series or something like that, i forgot now

im curious to see how much your wheel will turn, measure from center of your fronthub back straight across to rear arch opening there just above the body line down there on the body panel exterior

should be pretty accurate, but if the wheel were ot turn anymore then the measurement would start getting bigger then because the center of the hub would start tucking into the tub towards the engine in which wopuld then bring it farther away form the edge of the arch opening down there, technically


maybe 82's were just plain built with no steering/suspension parts clearance issues ? or just the t/a's ? or maybe cuz its all original unmolested and never wrecked ?


i dunno,

i think i will weld up bigger bumpstops that come out away form the backside of the LCA's so that the wheels dont turn so damn far like that!
only need about a third of the turning radius!

since 82-92 F-body steering parts design and components are supposed to be unchanged do you want me to take any more measurements from my 82 ?




good luck

 

I'm afraid that I need all the steering lock I can get. My parents house is on a cul-de-sac and even as my car stands I have to do a 3 point turn to get it round. And their street ain't the smallest in town by a huge margin.

If you don't use the full steering lock then this spohn sway bar would be fine. even the occasional use of full lock all you will notice is the steering gets heavy as it nears the ends and pushes the bar across the car. At the end of the day this will just cause the bushings to wear out fast, heavy steering and a bit of damage to the struts..... also possibly if you hit a pothole while near full lock it may shear the endlink.

Si.

 

Have you looked at your end link length, to see if a slightly longer or shorter end link would reposition it to where it doesn't interfere?

 

Yes I've looked at that, and it doesn't fix it. The actual bar is so wide that it will still hit the strut base even with a 3/4" endlink!

Si.:lala:

 

Weird. I have a Spohn bar on the front of my Camaro and haven't had a problem. Everything lines up the way it should.

Just a thought, but are you sure you got a sway bar for a 3rd Gen and not a 4th?

 

4th gen version : hmmm perhaps. What I have an invoice for is the 3rd gen version....? How would I tell?

When you turn the steering towards full lock does it get slightly stiffer before it gets to the endstop? Also could you check that the sway bar hasn't been moving sideways across the car when you go from one lock to the other. This should be visible at the bushings where the bar mounts to the chassis.

Cheers,

Si.

 

I not sure on the visual difference, but on Spohn's site it lists the 4th gen bar as 32mm and the 3rd gen bar as 1 5/16 inch or 34mm.

 

The bar I have does measure in at nearer the 33.3375mm (1 5/16") than the 32mm, so I think it must be the 3rd gen bar as I ordered.

Si.

 

Here's a picture of a 85 iroc 32mm bar compared with the 1 5/16" Spohn bar. As you can see the Spohn bar is 1 11/16" wider than the iroc bar. I have refitted the iroc bar in the car and it fits perfectly.

Si.

 

And here is where it hits the strut. At this point I still have 1/4 of a turn of the wheel to go before the usual end stop.

 

When you talked to Steve, what did he say about it?

 

When I talked to him about the initial problem of the bar not working with the stock iroc wonderbar he didn't seem that interested, but did suggest a work around using some 1/4" plate steel spacers. Turned out that he'd never tried it with a stock wonderbar, because his one has better clearance. Not sure given the design of the TDS one being much closer to stock, whether it would work?

I've emailed him pictures of the other more major problem but haven't heard back. If I find time I'll give him a call but I've wasted enough time and money trying to get this bar to fit. I have to concentrate on the rest of the car because I need to get it back on the road by Friday if I can, and I have plenty other work to do.

If I can get an easy and quick solution then I'm all ears, but my best thought thus far is to re-engineer the spohn sway bar to make it fit, by grinding more of the flat, and drilling new end holes. Then I would probably need to move the mounting bushings. This may or may not work given whether the shorter arm length this would produce would be enough or not?

Si.

 

I really doubt you want to play with modding the bar. I would send it back or ask for their dimentions and see if they will exchange it. By shortening the bar and drilling holes you will just end up with a different fittment problem.

 

From the comparison picture it looks to me like the last 'bend out' on the new bar is sharper than the original/OEM one. In other words the radius of the OEM bar is larger than the Spohn one. Not sure if that is exactly the case since pictures and angles can be deceiving. If this indeed is the case then the sharper radius will move the end link mounting points farther apart. It will also change the distance between the insulator/bushing centerlines and the end links (shorten it up). I marked out in the following pic what I'm referring to:



You might be able to heat up the area where those radii are and push the end link mounting points closer together. I would try to get it resolved with Spohn first before trying to reform (or even redrill as you stated in previous posts) the bar. Since the bends are compound it could get dicey trying to rework the bar. Also I would NOT rapid cool (use water or compressed air) the bar down after reforming it with heat. You will temper the bar and make it brittle!

Mike

 

I just measured some front OEM sway bars and the center to center distance between the end link mounts is 43.625 (43 5/8") or about 1108 mm. I would say that distance varied no more than 1/16" or about 1.5 mm from bar to bar. I took the measurements on the side that faces down towards the A-arms or ground.

Mike

 

If you shorten it and drill holes, you also have to remember that it will become stiffer. Don't remember why, but there is such a thing as too stiff front sway bar (I think front tire will lift completely under hard cornering).

Also, just my two cents, but I wouldn't try heating and bending it. Unless you are a professional (or know exactly what you are doing otherwise), I think it is very easy to alter the integrity of the whole thing. And swaybars have to deal with a lot of stress.

 

Thanks WECoyote! I'm glad that you've confirmed that a stock bar is around the 43 to 44" mark, and not the 45.5" which has been confirmed by Steve as being the correct size for a Spohn 3rd gen swaybar.

I'm not in the game of heat bending this bar. If thats what's required I would take it to a professional.

Given the way it doesn't fit my iroc I'm still left confused as to why nobody else has noticed this. Just wondering if the iroc steering box, which I beleive is slightly different from the standard one could be causing this problem? Does the 85 iroc have a greater stering lock than other models? I thought if anything it would have less given the wider tyres.

I've kinda put this on a back burner as I got new bushings for the iroc bar and cleaned it up,and refitted it. I'm going to concentrate on getting the rest of the car working first. I finally managed to get the car on its wheels again this evening, just need to do the alignment..... just a shame I've run out of holidays......

Si.

 

iroc-si

Are you sure Steve wasn't referring to the distance between the end-link mount holes in the A-arms? Not sure if he meant when the A-arms are 'hanging freely' or loaded and 'level'.

When you measured the distance on your car was the front wheels on the ground(or on ramps) loaded normally or where they hanging freely? You WILL get a different length measurement depending on the state the front end is in. This is caused by the fact the A-arms move in an arc path when they go from being free (wheels off the ground) to normally loaded or 'level' (wheels on the ground or lift ramps) When the A-arms are free to 'hang down' the distances between the end-link mounting holes become closer than if the arms were 'level' with the front suspension loaded. Make sense?

And yes....I would not attempt (as others have said) the heating method unless you fully know and understand what needs to be done and have the right equipment and space (bench or jig).

Mike

 

No it was the distance between the centres of the holes in the swaybar that he said were 45.5" or there abouts, which confirms what I measured. Don't know why he has designed his bar to be much wider than any stock bar.

Si.

 

I have the exact same problem with a 1984 Trans Am.