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Author Topic: stiffening a sway bar with angle iron?  (Read 1376 times)

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Offline carbomb

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stiffening a sway bar with angle iron?
« on: January 01, 2012, 07:02:31 PM »
I know you can buy bigger sway bars for pintos but i would rather spend my money on other things! I was wondering if there is anything very wrong with welding angle iron on the straight part of a sway bar? That would be where all the torsion and twisting occurs so if you welded a little reinforcement to it it should make stiffer and handle better. Right? I have coilovers on the back and it stays pretty flat just the front sway bar needs to be stiffer. We have a 220 mig so we could really melt it in and get good penetration. Just woundering if anybody has tried this or has any reasons not to.

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Re: stiffening a sway bar with angle iron?
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2012, 07:26:30 PM »
Are you road racing or something?

Offline postalpony

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Re: stiffening a sway bar with angle iron?
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2012, 07:33:28 PM »
Hi carbomb
1st don't weld on your swaybar. They are heat treated to effect torsional forces, & if you
weld on it the heat from the arc may cause the bar to break. This is just my opinion from
my 45+ years in industrial maintenance.    Dick
1980 Hatchback was a "Postal Unit" on the
west coast in it's early life. Now residing
in Ohio, But we don't haul the U.S. Mail anymore;
 Now all we do is HAUL!
 5th gear 4700 rpm & still pullin'= 113+  mph
 
 UPDATE-83.762 mph in 4th gear As verified by a W Va State Trooper-WITH 1 GEAR TO GO 6-2-11

Offline PintoMan1

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Re: stiffening a sway bar with angle iron?
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2012, 08:30:43 PM »
also as far as i know the bars are hollow!
1973 pinto runabout