I can't get the base plate for the end link to slide into my new trailing arms. The head of the spring bolt is in the way. I tried to raise the trailing arm with the jack and lifted the car of the jack stand before getting enough room in there.

Thoughts?

 

I assume you are talking about mounting the rear sway bar, right? I believe the base/mounting plate you are referring mounts to the top of the T/A. The spring bolt drops through and rests on a rubber cushon seated in a cup on the T/A. The bolt must go through first. With that orientation, you shouldn't have any problem with bolt head clearance. If you mount the sway bar after the car is on wheels, the bolt will compress the rubber cushion enough so you might be able to slip it inside the T/A, but don't think it is supposed to mount that way. When I had a rear sway bar on my 69, I had the mounting plate on top of the T/A. It had been removed from my car long ago.

 

There is a plate on the inside to bolt the bracketry too. For stock bars, you would have the triangle piece on top and the aftermarket bars use a long flat plate on top but there definetly is a plate that goes inside. You will need 3 tools. A long flat head, hammer and a small philipps head or punch. Pry w/the long screwdriver. Tap with the hammer and align the 2 holes with the punch or small phillips head.

 

It might be that the top surface of the trailing arm is bent. You would then have to straighten it out. There should be plenty of space for the plate inside the trailing arm. That's a flimsy design and the trailing arm sheet metal can easily bend if the sway bar gets cocked or if using a heavier after market sway bar. Van Steel's procedure sounds good. You can also use a cold chisel and hammer it in above the suspension bolt. I welded on additional reinforcing plates on the top & sides of the trailing arm where the sway bar bracket sits in order to prevent any future deformation of the box section at the back.

 

I couldn't get my Vette Brakes rear sway bar on. It was like the end bars were not long enough to ever mount.

So I bought heavy wall box tubing 1X1 1/2 and spaced my sway bar down from the frame.

I called Vette Brakes about their sorry product and told them that they should include this in the mounting kit.

 

I also believe that, without the cars full weight on the suspension, it makes connecting the sway bar to links almost impossible.

 

Another option would have been to use a longer link to connect the sway bar to the trailing arm. Both my front & rear sway bars are by Rancho and have spherical rod end connections to eliminate any slack. It's a quality set-up and didn't require any mods, other than reinforcing the ends of the trailing arms as I mentioned above, but that wasn't Rancho's fault. Unfortunately, Rancho discontinued their Corvette products a number of years ago and now focusses on SUV's & pick-ups, etc.

 

Thanks for all the input guys.

I am happy to report that this morning I got the link brackets on!

Part of the problem was that I am redoing the entire rear end and my spring bushings are new. So they have only been compressed by the tension applied from the spring with the car on jack stands.

On the passenger side I had to undo the spring bolt. Then raise the trailing arm using the jack. Then apply some leverage on the bushing via a pry bar. Then I could finally pound the link brace in. Once it was there everything was smooth sailing.

On the drivers side my trailing arm had an issue with a welding bead being in the way. I got out the dremel and ground that off. I didn't have to undo the spring bolt on that side. So I just used the jack and pry bar to get enough leverage to compress the bushing. Then pound the bracket into place and so on.

Of an interesting note, these were new brackets, plates, bolts and washers from one of the vendors (a sponsor I think) and the bolts were just run of the mill bolts. Not heavy duty grade 8 or anything like that. In my case I had damaged the threads of one earlier when drilling out the holes in the trailing arm. So I bought some grade 8's and used one on either side.

Seperate story... I had to drill the holes for the sway bar bracket on the passenger side. Don't know why as it was a new trailing arm. I didn't buy it from a forum sponsor but I did by a pair and the driver side had the holes. I already had the arm up and everything else attached so I made a template of the driver side and used it to drill the passenger side. It worked OK but a real pain in the butt with everything attached like that.

Thanks again everybody!