So I was on my way to work. I'm driving 75 down the freeway, I get off at my exit, and then go down the road about 2 miles , then make a left turn, and I hear this load pop sound, as I'm going over a dip in the road at about 20 MPH. So I start slowing down to check my car over, but before I could stop my car starts to fish tail all over the road. I'm talking both lanes and the center turn lane. I almost flipped my firebird twice. Any way the cause of all this fun was the rear control arm that is attached to the body on the passanger side and to the drivers side axle, had snapped in half at the drivers side. So now the body moves independantly of the axle from side to side. Does this happen often? Any one else have this happen?

 

I've never heard of this happening, thats freaking dangerous! Glad to hear you're ok....

 

That's the Panhard bar.

No I've never heard of it happening. Must have been severely bent for a very long time, to have flexed enough to do that.

 

Sorry my chiltons manual calls it a track bar. And no it wasn't bent. I just swapped the rearend out of it 3 months a go. It was perfectly straight, no visiable damage, other than light surface rust. Hope to have pics of it. It just sheared off at an angle toward the driver side. Definetly looking st aftermarket bars.

 

Damn that sucks. Dont worry about flipping though, the car wont flip over unless you go off the road and contact a solid object or one of the wheels/tires come off and get under the car. I've done some crazy stuff in my IROC and it never got close to flipping.

 

before you go looking at stronger aftermarket bars, i would take the time to figure out WHY that bar broke.


because if its somthing wrong with your car, you dont want it to happen again.

 

I got the firebird on two wheels twice. Once when I corrected to the drivers side and the rear end whipped over and once when the rear end whipped over to the passanger side when I corrected back. There might have been a small crack in the lowest part of the u shaped channel. All the metal is clean and rust free, except for this area.

 

This shouldn't be happening on a thirdgen. Something is wrong with your suspension. Plenty of people autocross and drift in these cars with no hint of pulling wheels or flipping, especially in a WS6 car. If you aren't a suspension expert i would take it to someone who is. If not, this will most likely happen again. Your car sounds very dangerous to drive.

 

Something tells me he really thought the car was going over. Remember the rear end couldn't be cetered anymore so the tires were probably lifting the body on top of them.

As for why the panhard bar broke in the first place, I would have to guess at a crack or something else that would have weekened it. I would just get a stock one for now and keep an eye on it for a while. They should be cheap enough at a junkyard, or you can PM me for my spare.

 

The track bar a had a very small 1/8th inch or smaller crack in it. I'm getting a junk yard one for now. A few quwstions? I swapped my 9bolt for a 10 bolt out of an 84 camaro rs, both had disc brakes, would this cause any problems. I also put front factory 16x8 rims on the rear end, because I broke a rear one and could only find fronts to replace both rear tires. Would this cause any problems. These are te only changes that I have made to the rear. I have looked the whole car over and I could not find anything wrong, other than rust on the track bar .

 

Well the crack would cause the whole thing to break, and as long as you have the rear wheels on the back you should be fine. The 9 to 10 bolt swap will NOT cause any trouble with either set of wheels, remember these are all factory options.