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Technical 1959 Chevy Truck front sway bar installation

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by 59Apachegail, Aug 3, 2020.

  1. 59Apachegail
    Joined: Apr 30, 2011
    Posts: 1,504

    59Apachegail
    Member
    from New York

    This is probably a review for most here but for the sake of everyone else... The instructions are shitty at best and barely readable. There is conflicting info on the internet so here it is:

    All of the sway bars I have found for a Second Series 1955-1959 task force truck look like this regardless of vendor:
    62AA96DE-D984-47BB-A99E-D479EA0A091F.jpeg
    The bars have a vendor label on the front so that is an easy way to figure out which way is up.

    How the rear mounts install:
    52114884-6DAA-4BBC-B8AB-FD189829B8E9.jpeg
    The triangular plate in the first photo is the rear mount. The two holes closest together are what slide up onto the u-bolts. The longest side of the triangle goes in towards the middle of the axle. In the photo above, I sandwiched it between the axle and the lower shock mount. For the sake of completeness the u-bolt nuts were torqued to 110 foot pounds.

    I used the shorter of the two shims (the brass looking part between the gold washers). Sorry for the upside down shot.

    9A4661CD-9990-4FC5-BC29-98A222816918.jpeg
    My truck is dropped 3” so it is possible the longer shim would work on a stock application.

    The front mount is supposed to start off a little sloppy and as it tightens down it locates itself. The mounting point is at the rear of the front crossmember. There are factory slotted holes so there is some room for adjustment.
    20BAA782-7369-435E-988E-CACEB4DB9729.jpeg
    I was left with 6 bolts and 2 long shims. 2 longer bolts with a portion of non-threaded shank and 4 shorter full threaded bolts. The four smaller full threaded bolts were what hold the bushing. The longer are the mount bolts.
    3DAFE413-8F1A-4287-A6D5-64520531234D.jpeg
    This picture is upside down but as you can see the shim was replaced with 4 thick washers (on each side) from the kit. I bought thin washers and used them under the two front bolts to create some clearance and avoid having too large a stack of washers.

    Here is a shot of the shim. If I used it the rear bolt/bushing pack would have been at too much of an angle forward. This is an issue because it should be as straight as possible. Mine is leaning forward and in towards the middle of the truck. It is as straight as I could get it.
    1814013E-D959-4B60-AE07-E334A9310296.jpeg
    Per instructions I torqued all the front 9/16” bolts to 20 foot pounds. The rear 1/2” bolts were tightened enough to just squash the bushings.
    91F63B3E-52C2-43FD-832C-86916D1E3E0A.jpeg
    This is the final product, Hope this helps out the next guy.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2020
    Sk1989 and swade41 like this.

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