Hello, I want to change my front sway bar bushings and am confused on the size of the W6 swaybar. Does anyone have the dimensions in Millimeters?

Car is 1987 Firebird with W6 suspension.

I have used search function but did not get a concrete answer.


Thanks,

Louis

 

"WS6" is little more than a buzzword. Particularly in our cars, where it meant just "upgraded suspension", not any specific part #s or anything like that, and it was different from year to year. Nobody hardly even paid it any mind to it until those late 90s cars came out with those giant STICKERZZZZZZZZ!!!!

The bar is … exactly, whatever size it is. Measure it. Take open-end wrenches to it and see which is the smallest that fits. Or, use a Crescent, and measure it.

These bars are spec'ed in mm; yours is likely either 34 or 36mm, but no guarantees. Bushings are mostly spec'ed in inches. Use a SLIGHTLY smaller bushing than your measurement, so it fits tight. Maybe the next 1/16" smaller than whatever you measure. Otherwise it will soon start making a weird banging noise when you go over bumps on only one side of the car, due to the bar being loose in the bushing.

 

Hi Sofa, thanks for the reply. I found out it is 36 mm. Appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Louis

 

i checked my year and parts catalog along with measuring. HOWEVER. WHERE EXACTLY DOES ONE MEASURE? never seen a post specify this

 

Measure at the bushing, since that's the part of it you'd be particularly concerned with in this matter. Right next to it is usually OK also, as long as there's no bend or anything right there.

 

36mm sway bars are 36mm near the center. Near the bushings, they actually seem to measure a bit smaller.

 

That is what I did because I didn't want to take the bar/bushings off. I did find 36mm in the middle and some other areas. I also measured other areas and the size does vary. Also checked RPO against parts catalog.

Are all 36mm bars hollow? How do you tell if it is hollow? I tapped on it with a screw driver but that didn't really any clues.

 

The bushing size needs to match the place the bushings go. Doesn't matter if the rest of the bar is 55mm; if the place where the bushings go is 24mm, then you need 24mm bushings. The rest of it is irrelevant.

For measurement, there's almost always a little bit on one side or the other of each bushing, where the bar rides in the bushing part of the time; you can look for the shiny spot and measure that, without taking anything apart.

The hollow bars have little weep holes on each side.

AFAIK there aren't any 36mm solid bars for our cars, stock; but as always, I could eeeeeeeezily be wrong. (and not only wrong, but mistaken in this particular point) A 36mm solid bar would be HEAVY. Like, piece of railroad track heavy. You wouldn't really want it anyway.

The stiffness of a torsion spring increases as the CUBE of the diameter. I.e., if it's twice as big, it's 8 times as stiff. The reason being, the incremental metal you add on the OUTSIDE of the bar, is what's doing all the work; the metal on the INSIDE (nearer the center) is mostly just along for the ride, since it has less mechanical advantage on whatever it's hooked up to. A 36mm hollow bar for our cars is about 1/8" thick or so, and is just about the same stiffness as a 34mm solid bar of otherwise equal properties. But, it weighs about 75% LESS THAN the 34mm bar. That's why they did that.

 

cool explanation. i down there right now will look for weep holes. haven’t ever noticed them.

question, decided to go with rubber for now. does the bar need lubed where its meet with rubber?

 

An occasional shot of spray silicone lube makes rubber sliding junctions work MUCH more smoothly. Never have tried it, but that silicone lube grease stuff ES sells for their parts, might work just as well on stock-ish rubber.

 

if you’re talking about sil gyde. i just that on just about everything. parts that get tucked away get a coating of it before i cover them up with something. dab bolts in it before assembly. great stuff. meant for brakes so it stays on and doesn’t eat at the rubber. i’ll give that a shot

 

The WS6 or any other suspension package didn't mean you got any specific size parts, just that they were upgraded. I've had factory WS6 cars that came with a 32mm solid front bar, 34 hollow and 36 hollow (the 34 and 36mm were both on '87's). There was also a whole series of spring PNs, what you got was supposed to be decided based on options/car weight as it went down the assembly line, but I wouldn't be surprised if some just got whatever they had in stock/felt like putting on.

I have noticed that the 36m front bar is more common on the camaros, even though the pontics typically were heavier and got stiffer suspensions. The reason appears to be that Camaros got a "safer" suspension tune where the 'birds got a more nutral one (the 36mm front bar causes these cars to oversteer with most suspension combinations). The 34mm bars appear to be the rarest- it seems that everyone thinks they have them but don't when you check them. The only cars that I've seen that for sure had 34mm hollow fronts were the TTAs, and they had different bushing mounts... (if anyone has a 34 I'm looking for one)

You guys are talking about 2 different things. The ES stuff is clear and VERY sticky. If you get it on something trying to wash it off is like trying to wash off some evil mixture of syrup and grease. Silicon brake grease (silglyde) is not as sticky, maybe a hair more sticky than normal chassis grease, and usually white or gray.

 

Thansk for clarification on ES - I have no idea what it is, what does ES stand for, who makes it so I can look at it? Silglyde is for brakes, but it is clear - at least the tubes I get. Has the consistency of lithium grease.

 

ES = Energy Suspension

The stuff for brakes would probably work; haven't ever tried it for that use. Butt hay, if it doesn't, you can just clean it off and put something else on. Even [gasp] the "right" stuff [/gasp]. For that matter, regular Mobil1 works just fine; just, the other is better.

 

Hi, I confirmed the diameter of the sway bar as 36mm and its definitely hollow.

Louis

 

ES= energy suspension, they usually package a small packet of clearish stuff that's super sticky marine grade grease with their poly parts

None of the stores I regularly shop at carry silglyde so I haven't seen it for years, but the CRC equivalent is white (it's a ceramic/silicon based grease) and a lot of the others are grey. They're not as sticky as the ES stuff but are fine on rubber.

 

I believe that he's putting it on rubber bushings which in theory would break down faster with petroleum-based lubes...