Quick question. Did not even know there was a problem until I was looking through some pictures I had gotten my son to take underneath the car and he noticed this. The question is, can I bend this bar back in to shape and if so should I use heat or just do it in a press? Or is there a better way that does not include locating and purchasing another sway bar?
The bracket that is bolted to the frame in picture #2 is what is bent forward, mostly. There appears to be a small bend in the anti-sway bar that may or may not need fixing once you get the bracket back where it belongs, but you could probably knock out with the rod off the car do it cold or you will take all the spring qualities out of that torsion bar spring.
Thanks guys. I was thinking that it probably didn't need any heat applied to it. Now I just need to take it off and get to hammering on it so I can get it back in place. We looked at the car for over a year and my son kept saying why is it sitting crooked and I kept telling him it was just where it was sitting. Age isn't always smarter.
Best to remove it and rebuild the entire front suspension assembly. You can see bushings are worn out and the rust has taken its toll.
In picture 2 and three you can see that the frame bracket on the right side of the car is bent. Looks like the sway bar was used to pull the car out of a ditch. If you can make the bracket look like the left side the sway bar will go back into the A frame bracket. You might not even need to mess with the sway bar its self. If you do need to mess with it a large hammer (4 lb) and a large block of wood will do the trick. HTH............Terry