Hi! Well, the junk yard didn't pan out. Ordered the 1" solid addco rear sway bar for my 1990 grand marquis wagon Btw, just a day after I placed my order, a parts company came through, with a 1990 crown vic police cruiser's rear sway bar for $78 shipped, if anyone else is interested in this upgrade? It was too late to cancel my order of the addco bar however. There was a conversation on grandmarq.net that the sway bars are too stiff for the control arms, that the torque isn't actually transferred all the way over to the opposing spring while cornering? It was advised that I box in the stamped sheet metal control arms to make them much stronger. So if I go that route (and I don't see why not), here are my options: --back the car onto ramps, or onto jack stands, and try to mig weld in place at my university. --remove the control arms entirely (how hard is that?), and then clean up and weld at the university from the comfort of a workbench before reinstalling --rent a garage space for a day with a welder and a full lift, to get the car more than 8" off the ground to weld with the control arms still in place --or hire the entire job out to a professional who has the equipment and a bit more experience (I've only done SOME welding). --finally, upgrade to heavier-than-stock-duty control arms, and skip welding my originals? if so, where do I get these? thanks!! -Bernard
Doing your own control arms can present a problem when there significant rust to seize up the bolts and bushings. People usually end up using a grinder on these after exhausting all other means. Torque box reinforcements are a common upgrade, and there might even be some kits out there, as there are for Fox-body Fords. Whether or not you can do it we don't know, but you really need some room under the car to work so lift would really help.
hmm, so it's easier to do the control arms on the car, rather than struggle to remove them for welding? What is the torque box? Forgive my ignorance :-(
I misunderstood, and was referring to the area where the control arm connect to the body. But that's for fox-bodies, Mustangs et al, and I'm not familiar with the big framed cars. Now that I do understand that you're asking about boxing the existing control arms, I'd suggest buying new ones, they'll look great and you will have enough work to do just getting them in.
if you still looking to let go of the extra rear sway bar? let me know. i need one for my 1980 "FULLSIZE" LTD wagon.
I haven't looked, so I might have a torque box... do I? 1990 panther body. For the PI sway bar, write Bucks Auto Parts at bucksparts@windstream.net PART NAME: "Sway Bar" PART INTERCHANGE: "524-00236" PART DESCRIPTION: "Rear, Police pkg" ADDITIONAL INFO: NONE REQUEST REFERENCE #: 2229092
