My rear left sway bar chassis mount (I'm running a Suspension Techniques bar in back) has a habit of coming loose and clattering while I'm driving down the road. I've been tightening it down weekly, say, for the past month.

Looks like it can't be tightened any more:







That's the bolt hole pulling through.

Have a steel plate welded over it and rethread it? I'm a little nervous about welding that close to the gas tank. I need ideas so I don't have to go swaybar-less.

Dan

 

Did you ever try thread-lock?

 

what is thread lock going to do to help that? it's ripping the subframe apart.

Search and you'll find that someone showed a repair for this.

 

Worst case scenario,just drop the gas tank,and then weld a new piece of steel in there.I dont see any other options for u.

 

I took off both sway bars (stock front and ST rear) and I'm going to drive around today and see how bad the body roll is without them. I have Ground Control/Koni suspension so that should help somewhat.

 

Well, I drove around today without sway bars and here is what I found.
It's actually not too bad - basically, it feels just like stock. But that's with Koni/Ground Control coilovers. So my suspension is doing the work my sway bars were doing before. Over straight-line one-wheel bumps, it's noticeably more comfortable. This makes sense, because since the springs are not tied together by the sway bar, the bumps are only pushing against one spring. Before, they were pushing against two.
The old familiar body roll is kind of annoying, so I might dial up the damping in my shocks (they're on full soft for the f*!%cked up streets of Oakland, CA), but otherwise, I can drive around with no sway bars without a problem. The ripped subframe can officially be a back-burner project.

BTW, more pictures:

The ripped out part of the subframe.

The white stuff is grease I put on there a little while ago when it started squeaking and creaking.

For reference, here's the other side, which is perfectly good.

As you can see, the bolt holes are spaced out farther, which probably prevented the right side from going bad.

 

Man u can have a shop weld that for cheap when your ready to get it fixed.Its a quick fix if u have a steel plate and a welder,and a drill press.

 

I'm afraid I'd have to drop the gas tank before they strike the torch. The gas feeder tube is only a few inches away from the mounting bracket.

 

I had a swaybar mount tear out of both front and rear. I ended up getting all of the swaybar subframe mounts welded up with 3mm thick steel plates - she aint gonna tear out anymore! (Y)

Its an easy job and you dont need to pull the gas tank.

 

mine was a little worse than yours



then i had it welded with another plate on the side for more support


i originally wanted to box the chassis where it mounts too
but the welder was only able to access on side of the chassis

if it tears out....they will repair it for free

 

That's pretty sweet. And your gas feeder hose is right there. I guess you can weld right there without being afraid of the car going boom. Cool.

 

the gas hose can be removed pretty easily
just 2 clamps and a bracket or something
throw a flame retardant rag over it too

 

mine looked exactly like snlper except both holes were rusted what my friend did was cut around the holes in a rectangular shape and cut the same shape from a bumper support beam, welded that to the frame. He then drilled holes for the bolts and he amazed me by putting nuts in the frame and welded them in then sanded it down sprayed some undercoating and bolted the sway bar back up "looks like factory" is what he said. this was back in november and still holding up

 

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This is the Progess set up. I've had mine welded like this for about 3 years. No problems.

 

I'm surprised ST did not supply you with beefier sway bar mounting brackets. The progress setup gives you everything.

 

^^^^

exactly why I went with the Progress setup

 

Ah, I didn't realize that. :/