I totally glossed over the sway bar provisions on QA1's B-body lower control arms.

The mount is further inboard on the arm, meaning I can't use the front sway bar I have now with them. The car came with a sway bar so the original LCAs had the tab further outboard on the arm, above the strut rod hole.

QA1 also says the sway bars that they do sell only fit their arms AND their K-member (which I'm not using)

Am I stuck here? Or does QA1 just use some GM swaybar style I can find cheaper to use with my K-member and their arms?

It also looks like I could mount my current sway bar to the strut rods, but I'm not sure if there's a way to parts-mix or retrofit that mount style. The current sway bar sits in line with the QA1 mount hole, but about 2 inches further outboard.

I'm also wondering if I could use an E-body sway bar if those things are narrower with the same arm length, as they only state limitations for B-bodies:

Part #52308 is a direct fit for 1970-72 B-body and 1970-74 E-body. Will work on 1966-69 B-body with QA1 K-member and sway bar, and 1962-72 B-body without sway bar.

From what I remember reading, they use an E-body style sway bar mounting setup, even on earlier B-bodies.

Yeah and looking at installation instructions for stock E-bodies, it looks like the bar mounts further back on the K-frame than for B-bodies.

My mounts are directly underneath where the strut rods poke through the K-frame; E-bodies are a fair bit further back, so an E-body bar will be too short.

If I make the bar parallel with the strut rod, there isn't that much reach between the eye on the bar and the mount on the arm - if I could just get some kind of heavy-duty double right angle link rods, or anything to make up the lateral difference I'd be fine. Does Speedway or someone stock links I might be able to adapt?





I'm also wondering if I could adapt 73-74 style clamp/rod style sway bar mounts and use the rod end to mount to the arm:

The sway bars mount different, but if yours is a late build 69 it might have the k-frame that you can use the 70 b-body style sway bar with if you get the brackets and drill a couple holes.

There was also a post recently, not sure which section, but about getting sways made for a pretty good price... modify from original specs for stuff like minitubbing and moving springs in.

My car is a 67 - I can't really do much with the K-frame side of things, which is why I'm hoping to find either a narrower bar with a similar arm length or some weird linkage change.

The K-frame has a couple of drain holes fore and aft of the big K openings, but even if those happen to sort of match the later cars' brackets, there aren't any flat parallel surfaces so they'd be out of alignment to the bar, not to mention I don't have any up/down clearance to pass the bar through the K-frame holes like the later cars do.

It's sooo close I'm hoping I can just come up with some goofy endlink setup. If I had a huge hydraulic brake I could just bend the bar ends to line it up.

Aha of course! The shock bolt eye is much closer to the old endlink's mount axis than the E-body tab location on these arms (heck, OEM arms have the shock bracket almost longitudinally parallel with the swaybar mount hole)

I could use a longer + stronger shock mount bolt and use an endlink with an eye bushing/threaded rod construction to attach. There would be a mild amount of deflection on the rod end, but that gets me in a much better place than anything else I've come up with.

Take the swaybar to a machine shop and have them bend it to the required width. NO HEAT !!!

^
That got me thinking - I felt a little weird about bending this thick a piece of bar steel and I came across this thread:

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/bending-a-sway-bar.964614/

The very last post details almost my exact problem - the guy fixed it by heating and bending the ends of the arm sections, not touching the original bends in the bar.

Since I just need to move the existing arm ends inward, maybe it would be better to mark and heat-bend them in the middle of the arms like that guy did vs messing with the existing torsional areas on the bar? It's definitely made of 4140 spring steel (Summit bar).

It seems less risky to me... by modifying the bar only where there is a straight force along the axis of the arm vs a twisting force, I'm probably less likely to compromise the bar I'd think? I'd hate to have the thing snap inside someone else's machinery.

Edit: I also found another post where a guy just pulled the ends of his together with a come-along

Lucky me, I still had those angly tab things lying around. Obviously this would need a larger bolt and washers. Should this work or am I just going to bust these shock tabs?

Weld it with a gusset? Looks good to go to me .

I would use it as is and see if it starts to bend those mounts, if it does fix it then

There are actually a number of aftermarket sway bar kits that mount up in this exact method. On a stock control arm, it has never been a big deal, in my experience. I've had several cars configured this way and all worked fine. The QA1 arms seem like they are well engineered and may hold up, but the shock mount is not identical to the stock layout that is sandwiched within the main body of the arm, so you may want to monitor the mounting tabs over time to see if you start bending anything.

You could also look into using an E body or 71+ B body sway bar to see if it better aligns with the installed tabs. The caveat with this is many of the pre '70 K frames have a wall internally that prevents the bar from mounting through the K frame.

I doubt you will see a big difference in applied rate between the two styles of bars as the mounting point difference on the arm is closely offset by the length of the arm difference as a result of the difference in mounting location of the bar.

as stated, those are a commonly used mounting bracket. they work very well, and unless you are really beating on the twisties, they will serve your needs with no worries.

Sweet, this sounds good. Thanks guys. I'll try loading the bar up a few times with a floor jack under an arm to make sure nothing iffy starts happening right away. My main concern was loading those tabs off the angle brackets when they're only welded with purely down-vertical forces in mind vs how the stock arms are constructed.

Either way, having the arms reinforced at the shock mounts if I need to is an easier prospect than messing with my sway bar. Thanks again for the input, I spin more wheels in my head than I ever do on the pavement