Write-Up: Front/Rear (Addco) Stabilizer/Sway Bar Installation

Spent the last 4 hours trying to pull the front bar. Wheels turned right/left, suspension compressed/decompressed on each wheel, and every combination of those I could think of. Even tried flipping the bar to the back side of the tie rods... no luck.

I'm giving up. Maybe someone knows the trick?

Shop manual says I need to remove the tie rod and possibly the exhaust! Guess I'll try this again after I rent a puller tool.

the shop manual says maybe you have to remove the exhaust?

It says to remove it, but it's referring to a stock pipe, not an SLP flex pipe.

That is why I didn't get in on the group buy for the sway bars. It looks like a lot of hard work to get the old one out and the new one installed.

I wish I had your foresight. I thought it looked easy. But looking at it now, I'll be happy if I can remove the tie rod(s) and get it out. If the exhaust has to drop, that'll be interesting.

Didn't someone else report on their front bar install, on the regal board?

I won't be able to work on my car until may and am actually 500 miles
from it. I don't remember the suspension setup up front, so
please jog my memory. I thought it was only held on by the
end-links and clamp/bushing assemblies



Are you saying you can unbolt everything but can't get it out?
have you tried removing the pass wheel and pulling it out through the
wheel well?

Yeah, I unbolted it. bar is totally free. Just can't get it out because of its shape. I had both wheels off, car on stands, control arms compressed, etc.

I challenge anyone to get it out without removing a tie rod end.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll do it at the base's car club, where
we have lifts and tools. I'll take pics and do a write-up, but I
only expect to do it in May.

A friend of mine's offered to let me do it at his company's garage. I may do it this or next weekend.

Success! Front is bar installed! I've been driving around for an hour... I like it.

Write-up coming soon.

so do the supplied bushings work?

No. As expected, the supplied bushings didn't fit right. I tried them, but it's pretty clear this wouldn't be a good idea:



In the above pic, the bracket is fully mated to the frame, and the bushing isn't even compressed enough to close it. You can also see the bushing doesn't seat correctly with it's flat bottom. There was enough play that I could freely move the bar and bushing around inside the bracket, maybe 1/8" or so.

I used the new (bigger) rubber OEMs with the enlarged brackets. Even with the bar's slightly larger diameter, the rubber bushings work well. With the bar and both bushings installed, you can still turn the bar with your hand, so it's firm, but not too tight:



If I can find a different set of hard bushings in the future, they can be swapped out without even lifting the car. In the meantime, this will have to work. So far, seems to be doing okay. Very quiet, too.

you had changed to the redesigned brackets at some point, right?
perhaps the supplied bushings work with the old style, superceded
brackets, though the divot in the subframe makes me doubt that very
much.



I'm going to call addco monday and let them know about this
issue. I'm also going to ask them about the rear bushings.
We should have them by now.

The new brackets were installed for the first time today. The above picture of the supplied bushings is with the old style bracket. With the new bracket, they be very loose, maybe having 1/4" of movement.

It doesn't surprise me the bushings don't fit. Think of it from sales' point of view. You have a group buy opportunity, so you find a bar that fits a similar car that you think will work, so you sell it and make money. Only trouble is, we don't really know it they work until someone fits them to the car.

I was very surprised the new bar fit with no issues. The bushings are a minor thing. The rubber is pretty good, and it's quiet. Later on I can fabricate something if I need to (for the rear I'll need to for sure, as the bar is much thicker).

I've been taking some tight turns today, and there is some improvement, but not huge. I'm not pushing the car super hard until I get the rears on, plus need new shocks in rear. Then I'll find out what the limits are.

Quote :

It doesn't surprise me the bushings don't fit. Think of it from
sales' point of view. You have a group buy opportunity, so you find a
bar that fits a similar car that you think will work, so you sell it
and make money. Only trouble is, we don't really know it they work
until someone fits them to the car.

This
doesn't really have anything to do with the distributor we purchased
the bar from, but rather with Addco. Their whole parts catalog is a
mess.
Addco's catalog only lists one bar, and a singe set of bushings for all g-platform cars, including the riviera.
There is no way that the supplied bushing fits on an seville (STS or
otherwise) as all the g-platform cars used the same bushing clamp! All
the OEM front bushings also have the same form factor, to espouse the
shape of the groove...

Also, I approached never enough auto to
get us a deal on that specific set of bars, I didn't ask them to find a
bar that would fit. Suffice to say I
will never buy another addco product again. Not because of the quality
of the bar itself, but because of their reprehensible customer service.



PS why is the forum always cropping my text in a weird way? even if I
don't use quick reply, it makes short lines, adds random spaces and
adds blank lines between paragraphs...

What browser and version are you using?

firefox 2.0.0.3

Also I forgot to ask you: are the frame bolts prevailing torque bolts?

I don't understand what could be wrong, Jason. I use the same version of Firefox on 2 PCs and 2 Macs with no issues.

The bolts are not the prevailing torque type. I've removed and reinserted all 4 of them about 6 times over the past month, and once last year, torqued to 28 lb-ft each time. I examined the threads and they didn't look distorted; they are loose threading in, so good feel when tightening. If you have information that says otherwise, let me know. I know GM used for the mounting bracket of some cars, but the shop manual does not indicate this is the case.

BTW, thanks for staying on top of this and contacting Addco, etc. The bushings are a minor thing to me, but it would be nice to get a hard set that fit correctly. Hope we can find something that will work.

AA wrote:

I've been taking some tight turns today, and there is some improvement, but not huge. I'm not pushing the car super hard until I get the rears on, plus need new shocks in rear. Then I'll find out what the limits are.

You should actually be understeering more with that even larger front bar. It's probably more of a mental upgrade right now. The pavement is a bit warmer today and cleaner than it has been in a few months so you could just be feeling that too.

Did you have the new swaybar links before you put on the bar ? If not some of the improvement is from that.

The links are brand new, and part of the kit. They appear to be good of quality.

I agree, Joe. It's a mental upgrade for now, or until I can tell a definite difference, or measure the improvement somehow. I'll assume that after the rear bar, new shocks, and the front strut brace, she'll be improved. Maybe hit the auto cross in summer to see what happens.

Aaron, glad to see you finally got the front installed. This whole deal has been nothing but BS on Addco's part. I'm definitely not looking forward to this project. Once I have rear bushings, I'll probably do the rear install first, should be much simpler. Then I'll decide if I even want to do the front. The front already is flatter in the turns with the STB installed, so the rear bar upgrade alone may be ok with the stock front bar.

Don't be discouraged yet. Addco's bar is thicker, but not that much, and one of the things I applaud them for is designing the bends for easy install. The new bar went in a lot easier than the old one came out. If you know the way, it's not really that hard to do. My only concern is the stock down pipe. My headers use a flex pipe, which helped me. I don't know what you can expect with the OEM. Might be a good project to do down pipe and bar together.