Here is a cheap/eazy handling fix.Late 90's up rear swaybar off chev suburan almosts bolts up.We cut mounting brackets off donor,trimed down f to r. Tacked in place.Arms on end of bar went in factory holes on frame.Bar faces to front ,over gear carrier.My wagon handles GREAT NOW.We also changed to 4;11 equel-lock,AOD keep rpm down.
Do you have pictures of this installasion. Thanks HR.
Not yet,will get car on rack and take some.
Intrigued... Please provide more details. I would like to see some pictures.
I'm pretty sure the Station wagon and the custom line use the same frame -- anyone?
Tryed to take pic. ,camera would not flash.It is simple; 2002 chev. sub. rear bar goes with arch foward over third member.Mounts are cut off donor then trimed about !/2,leaving mounting hole for bushings.Arms off end of swaybar go to holes in frame arch.Postion everthing and weld bushing mounts to axle.Slight adjust of brake lines to clear.You are done.Hour to do all.My wagon goes aroud corners like my 94 c vic-flat as a fritter.
< flat as a fritter > :burnout: thats preety flat bagboy,lol. glad it worked out for ya. gotta do something with mine in time , great idea and thanks for sharing with us, bill
2002 suburban... should be the same as... 00-07 TAHOE/SUBURBAN/YUKON... I'll have to go dig one of these up from one of the local bag'n'drop shops scrap pile.
Just to update my wagon,with new sway bar. Took my uncle on a short ride out to my home. AS we were heading out of town I told him about the handling changest WE have done .There is a hard uphill r. turn ,I went into corner 35-40 , rear end broke loose as I punched the 351w ,slid about 3ft and came back. When I turned to look- his eyes were like dinner plates. He was impressed!
Hey bagboy -- still around? It's been a long time. Maybe you have a better camera now?
Sure hope this is the right one, cause I just bought one for 29 bucks on ebay, brand new, and they have 10 more, if anyone is looking for one.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251450194765?item=251450194765&viewitem=&vxp=mtr
Let us know what you got when you get it. I'm curious about the dia of the bar.
Okay, I will. Just collecting parts right now so I can blast the frame and paint it, then put it together with all the new suspension pieces. Have to do that fairly quickly, cause the body will have to roll outside in the snow while I do it. I have most of the body mounts built and welded in place, then soon after that it will go to the blaster to get cleaned up. That's when I will do the frame and suspension pieces. Hopefully in a few weeks.
Okay, I went to the border today and picked up a whole bunch of "stuff" to keep me moving ahead. I got the sway bar mentioned above, and the diameter turns out to be 1 1/16". It might be a little stout for the back end, but I'm going to mount it up anyway to see how it works for me. Bagboy says it works fine, and I guess we'll see. It will be a long long time before I can report back on that, though, as there is a lot of work to be done first. I'll mount it up to the chassis while its easy to do, before the body goes back on, but I won't be driving this thing any time soon. We'll see when the time comes.
I would sure like to see a picture of the parts and the installed product.
Caution-rear bars that large can cause some wierd handling on cars under 5500lbs!
If i remember the rear bar should only be about 60% of size of the front.
Goodluck,
Ron.
the larger the rear bar the more oversteer you will have.the larger the front bar the more understeer you will have.you pick the size of the bars to try to get neutral steering
Well, its been quite a while, but I finally got a little bit done today. Here are some pics of the Tahoe rear sway bar. It might be a little big, but its on here now, cause I already had it. I can always change it out for a smaller one if need be in the future. I found also that an S10 blazer rear sway bar was a similar fit, and that is where I got the brackets to mount this one to the rear end housing. The S10 blazer bar is quite a big smaller diameter so I may go to that one. It will be quite a while before I get to drive this thing, but a couple guys asked for pics, and its easy to do that with no body on it yet.
So now, I have to curse my "winter engineering" cause my body and frame have been outside all winter, as I have been doing metal work on a 51 Chevy tin woody. My sway bar and rear brake engineering were done inside, as the chassis was outside in the cold and snow, so it didn't match up entirely the way I wanted it to.
I made up my own rear disc brake setup from scratch, partly because I'm cheap, but mostly because I don't have a lot of cash to spend on a kit. I bought this a piece at a time, and it sorta turned out okay, till I put the sway bar on, then realized I might have some emergency brake cable clearance problems. Bolted the disc and calliper on quickly and sure enough, I had to roll the sway bar ahead on the brackets that bolt it to the rear end housing. After I loosened the brackets and rotated the sway bar mounts forward slightly, it seems to clear the emergency brake cables okay, but the links on the front are running at a slight angle now. We will see how that works eventually. For now its gonna have to be good.
I gave the S10 Blazer sway bar to a friend and I'm gonna have to pester him to get it back, so I can see if it will be a better fit now.
Oh well.
I will post the rest of the brake setup on my Ranchero build thread.
One more comment on this Tahoe sway bar. My daughter in law drives a 2006 Tahoe, and we used it to drive to my daughter's wedding several years back. My son and I drove it from Lethbridge AB, across British Columbia to Tofino, about 800 miles of twisty windy road, and my son called the Tahoe a "milk truck", cause it had so much body roll. I hated driving it in the mountains.
The rear sway bar is hollow, not solid, even though it has a large diameter. I read somewhere that the hollow sway bars are not as stiff as a solid one that is the same diameter. I am hoping that it will be light enough for the back end of my Ranchero, cause its obvious to my son and I that its pretty much a light duty bar for the big Tahoe that it was designed for. We will see when I get it up and running, as I stated earlier.
Nice fabrication work. Just curious why you didn't use the 57 rear axle assembly?
Sure. I wanted a posi unit, and would have had to buy one.
The 57 Ford unit is the perfect width for an early street rod, like the 40 Ford pickup I have in storage, for a future project. That's where the 57 unit will go. I saw no sense in narrowing a perfect rear end. If I had found a Ford rear end from a pick up truck perhaps, with a posi unit as cheap as I got this 12 bolt unit with a brand new Auburn posit in it, for free, from my brother, I would have used the Ford unit, then narrowed it. This 12 bolt GM unit was from a van and it was 68 inches wide originally, so it was either junk or narrow it and buy a set of axles. I knew I would have to buy a new set of axles regardless of whether I used the original rear or this one, so that was a non issue.
I knew it might cause a little hate and discontent among my fellow Ford friends, but it was just too good to pass up, and you won't see it under the car anyway, as it will be pretty low when its done.
Thanks,
You won't get any hate from me, I see your reasoning. I was just curious..
Quote from: jvo on 2016-02-28 21:42
The 57 Ford unit is the perfect width for an early street rod, like the 40 Ford pickup I have in storage, for a future project. That's where the 57 unit will go.
and that folks is why there were so many 57s out there with no rear ends and every hot rod ever built had to have a 9" in it!
No hate here either, love the "yarding" to make it all come together!