Can someone tell me please what's involved in installing a rear swaybar on a '68 Riviera where there was none from the factory? I've found 1.125" front and 1" rear in Kanter's and I'm all for improving handling. Thanks.
Ask Yardley, he did his. The kit they give you puts the bar too close to the pavement. He could tell you how he fixed that, it requires boxing the rear control arms. Maybe he will see this post and explain it to you. I only did my front bar, that was PITA enough making it fit. :bglasses:
Luckily I keep paperwork pretty organized. These are the instructions that came with the rear bar for my 70 riv. I bought the bars from PST.
I installed the rear bar on my '64 Riv. many (30+) years ago. I also did not like the way it hung sooo low. I raised it up by putting it under the springs & cutting a small notch in the rear to accomplish this. It now sits a little lower than midway over the rear housing. I did not have to box my lower control arms as the bar & plates were above the arms & below underneath the springs. When I remove the front bar (1 5/16") for drag racing it takes about 10 or so minutes to remove & 20 or so to re-install. Granted it's not a light weight but was no more of a problem than a stocker. Tom Telesco
OK. BuickSleeper's instructions are indeed correct. But... Installing it that way DOES make the bar hang too low.
I feared I'd catch it on a raised manhole cover someday. It was THAT low. Here is the revised location. Compare the location of the bottom of the "POSI TAG" with the proximity of the bar in each pic.
You need to weld some kind of plate on to the open bottom of the rear control arms. This is necessary because the bolts that hold the plate on (which will now mount on the TOP of the control arms instead of the bottom) need to drop through a hole in a piece of metal. Trust me. It isn't hard to remove the control arms (but you WILL need to either raise the car up pretty far or use a GOOD impact gun), and then it is cheap to have them boxed up if you can't do the welding yourself. Also, now is the time to add new bushings. Installing the sway bar the way the instructions say - on the bottom of the control arms looks VERY GHETTO. The difference the boxed in control arms made was VERY noticable. The difference the rear sway bar made was astounding!
Yardley, have you ever had any sort of interference with the bar being located ontop of the arms? I still havent installed mine, but It sure does look better going about it that way.
Thanks gang! Have already installed new body bushings, have a complete new front end - bushings, ball joints (already pressed in), centerlink, idler arm, tie rod ends, springs and shocks are done on the front, painting included - just need to install it all Sunday. EVERYTHING under the car will be new. Then we'll address the rear. Parts (bushings, shocks, springs) are in hand. I already have the rear out of the car and will box the arms here at home then press the new stuff in.. have the press right here and the welding is cake - did it on a buddies '69 GS. Have the gas tank cleaned up and painted, new hardware, painted the front inner fenders and firewall. So as soon as the suspension stuff is done the low mile '70 SF 455 will go in. It'll be down to cleanup on the core support and front clip assembly. I'm expecting to have it on the road early April. Paint.. someday. Thanks again.
Ok, I'm right on the hairy edge of ordering both bars from Year One. Someone said there was some difficulty installing the front bar? I've upgraded the front bar on the GS with no real problems, certainly nothing other than bolt-hole alignment that took a bit of muscle. Same thing on the Riviera front? Going to box the rear arms anyway so if there's no clearance issues on your bar Yardley I'll go for it using the instructions from this thread only installed on top of the control arms instead of the bottom. Y1 shipping was $38 for both which surprised me. Or are they going to add $50 "handling". That's always been my issue with them. Thanks ya'll.bbbb
I bought an ADDCO front bar and installed it. And it was too wide and bottomed out on the frame. So I called ADDCO and agreed to send them their bar back with my oem bar in the box to use as a template. After a couple of months I get my old bar and a new bar, but this time the end links wouldn't fit into the ends of the bar. When I pulled it out and laid it on top of the original bar you could see that the bar was a little off. So, back the bar went, again with my OEM bar as a template. The 3rd bar was a charm. It took a little trial and error and cutting of end link components to get ones that would be the right height and all, but nothing too big of a deal. Word of warning... while the sway bar bushings and mounts fit in the original holes in the frame, they aren't an exact fit. But they work.
I had to send my front bar back also..........it was not wide enough and scraped on the frame. The second one fit fine, and I had to use the shorter links that came with the kit. Also, I had to put 1/4" thick shims under the frame mounts in order for the bar to be level when the car is at normal riding height. (b/c of the shorter links) What a difference in cornering this thicker bar made! :Brow:
