arbeitm

I removed the 20mm front sway bar from my SC and am replacing it with 22mm OEM front sway bar off an 87 Carrera.

I know...I know....I should be going with an adjustable through body aftermarket type....but I can't afford it right now. So I'm just going with the stock front/rear sway bars off a Carrera (22mm and 21mm).

It was the end of the day and I didn't have a lot of time to spend...but my initial test fit shows that with the car up on jack stands, I can't seem to get the two ends of the sway bar to go into the bushings on the control arm. It seems like I have to jack the two wheels up before I can get them to go in.

Any advice on this?

84_Carrera

Dude, I found this part to be a total SOB when I did mine all over, but I was able to get it without much help (I think the mrs. came by & offered some token grunting to help the situation out).

Good luck!

arbeitm

So what did you do? Do you have to jack up the front wheels to get the geometry correct?

Ed Hughes

It has a bit of tension on it by nature. It should be somewhat intuitive. Mine didn't go on easily either, but it just required a little coaxing. Do you have the other mounts loose too? Get the bar in, and then tighten everything up.

J. Brinkley

try to get the front end balanced and wheels need to be loaded up to.
I have used two stands under the AL crossbrace, and two bottle jacks on the ball joints, wheels off.
work one bottle jack as needed for tweaking.

I've also set one side in and then work the other one in without the bushing in place, and putting the bushing in there after the bar is through.

I've also dropped one arm from the ball joint end.
there are many ways, get creative

theiceman

You will never get the geometry correct ... it is suppose to be a PITA .. if you could get the geometry just right then it could possibly fall out right ?

I have lived your nightmare..

I used grease and liberally coated the bushings, I used dow corning but can't remember the number 111 I think. I then pushed one end in as far as it would go , braced my feet against some suspension points and used many grunting graoning sounds to get it back in .... and I was putting stock back in.. good luck with the oversize Matt.
grumble grumble .. yeah I have a pic here somewhere....

arbeitm

Thanks for the tips and pics.

It seemed like when I put one side of the bar into the bushes the other side of the bar was very far away on the outside of the other bushing. So I tried jacking that side up, but it was still the same. Maybe I have jack both side up to get it closer.

arbeitm

I took a shot at this yesterday. It was the last thing I tried to do after a long 6 hours of reindexing rear torsion bars and installing the 21mm rear sway bar. So I was a bit on the tired side....but still no luck.

I was able to get it in without the bushings in place, but then I couldn't get the bushings on with the sway bar in place.

Ed Hughes

You never answer my question, I don't think, about whether the belly pan brackets are in place. Those were the last thing I tightened up on mine after getting the ends situated.

arbeitm

No. Nothing is connected. I was trying to get the ends in first before connecting the middle brackets.

Amber Gramps

could you pull the dog legs in with a motocycle tiedown strap? like a giant bow and arrow. you only need about 2-3 inches total. you could do it off the car and crawl under the car with it loaded and pop the strap and fire it in. yes, this is a serious post.

theiceman

Doug that is possible but quite dangerous.. I think Matt has the right idea but just hasn't quitre cracked it . I may have used a 2 by 4 and jammed it in place and bent it around I don't remember. matts may be harder due to the stiffness...

Ed Hughes

I'm wondering if your new sway bar has been bent somehow? It doesn't fall into place, but it ain't that tough. If it was, the boards would be littered with posts about them not going back in.

Amber Gramps

LOL, Ice, it's a Porsche, it is suppose to be dangerous....

do you really think it would work?
If you used one with a ratcheted clasp that could be released slowly it wouldn't be sooo dangerous

arbeitm

I was actually thinking of that. I saw a couple of posts on Pelican that talked about doing that. Check this post out...scroll down to Tonythetarga's post.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showt...hlight=swaybar


I'm pretty sure it's not bent. I put the old one and new one on top of each other to check the geometry. Seemed fine. And it lines up fine with the A-arm mounts if I put the ends on top of the mount.

The problem yesterday, was when I got one side in, I could not bend the other side enough to get it into the other mount. I was thinking a tie down strap could help me bring the ends closer together. I need about an 1". I also had the front suspension loaded.