'Was working under my Maverick last night & noticed that one of the 5/16" bolts for the passenger side end-link of the rear sway-bar is bent at the top (near the head). Has anyone else ever experienced this with their Addco rear sway-bars? I've probably driven this car 500 miles since installing it. Should I upgrade from the grade-5 bolts to grade-8?
both bolts on mine bent. they never broke. i would leave them alone. now the addco way of mounting to the frame will rip through the frame pretty quickly. when mo owned the car we built a chanel that had nuts welded to it that went around the frame rail. then the sway bar bracket bolted to those.
Okay, so I'm not the only one who's experienced bent bolts. 'Seems like bad geometry to me. Yes, I know about the mounting, and I did not use Addco's method. I had steel plates with 3/8" threaded inserts welded to the sub-frame rails in , and bolted the brackets to those using grade-8 bolts. The end-link bolts are only grade-5 though.
grade 5 will bend more before breaking than grade 8. i agree that it seems like bad geometry and thats about what i expect from addco.
I've had both problems with mine, bent bolts and torn subframe channel. Been considering using adjustable rod ends/heim joints instead of bolts and the goofy u-shaped plate from Addco.
It's as if the sway-bar ends aren't quite wide enough (slightly narrower than the width of the frame rails), which puts the end-link bolts at an angle instead of straight up.
