New BontragerWorks Rear Swaybar For My SVX

[Lookin4SVX]

Well Yesterday was the 4th of July, and I had some friends over to hang out and do the cookout thing.
I figured while I had the free labor around, what better way to celebrate this great day than by installing my new BontagerWorks Rear Swaybar.
You know, nothing says 4th of July quite like laying under a car in 90 heat, swearing at 18 year old rusted bolts, while trying to avoid eating the falling rust.

The original bar was in very bad shape. The endlinks and bushing were so shot I don't think it was doing anything at all.
You could move the bar around easily with 1 hand.
After removing the original bar, I took some pictures of it.

Original Rear Swaybar:






I think it is safe to say my original bar and bushing were toast....


Here is the BontagerWorks Rear Swaybar in a side by side comparison:

[Lookin4SVX]

Ok, so now onto the install.
We put the car up on ramps and removed the original rear swaybar:




This is what it looks like with the bar removed.
Drivers Side:
You can see the factory mount bracket still held on by its top bolt in this picture, we bent it out of the way and pulled the bar out (after the bar was out of the way we remove the brackets):

Passenger Side:


We then loosely mounted the new swaybar by the new mount bushings to the original location.

We decided that since the nuts were on the top on the factory brackets that we would install the new ones the same way.
Nevins writeup does it the other way, not sure if it makes a difference.
I think it would have been easier to get the nuts on with them on the back like Nevin did, since you can see what your doing.


Once we had the new bar held in place loosely by the bushings, we moved onto the endlinks.

We loosely attached the endlink, bolt, washers, and nut to the swaybar's end on the Drivers side:


Then we loosely attached the endlink, bolt, washers, and nut to the hub end on the Drivers side:


At this point everything on the drivers side is on, just not tight:

[Lookin4SVX]

Then we moved onto the passenger side and repeated the process.

Passenger Side Bar End:


Passenger Side Hub End:


Passenger Side Loosely Together:


Ok, now that all the parts are on, we centered the bar and began to ajust and tighten down the endlinks.

First we did the Passenger side Hub end:


Then we did the driverside hub end:


Then we tightened down the Driver side Bar End.


Then we tightened down the passenger side Bar End


Then We Tightened Down the bushing bolts.

Passenger Side Bushing:


Driver side Bushing:

[Lookin4SVX]

The Finished drivers Side:


The Finished Passenger Side:


Rear Swaybar Finished:

[Nevin]

Great pictures there! For curiousity sake, how hard would you rate the install on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being easy, 10 being hard.

And yes, you're exactly right about the bushing mounting bolts. I tried both ways myself, but the way I took a picture of made it easier to start things.

p.s. Yes your bar was in horrible shape. hahaha

[SilverSpear]

Man... I have never seen a swaybar in such a bad shape!
Good thing Nevin came with his bar...

[Blacky]

Not only did my old bar look exactly like that but you have the same old red steel ramps that I do.
Just wish the rest of my car looked as good as yours.

P.S. Are you liking the Evos?

[Lookin4SVX]

Well I say very easy, and I am not mechanically inclined.
On a scale of 1-10 where 1 = installing a new battery, then I give this a 3?.

Installing a set of used hood struts was 6 bolts, this was 8 bolts.
Same hand tools, just a set of metric combination wrenches and sockets.
There was nothing crazy to it, nothing else needs to be removed to get to it. Nothing is in the way of it.
So I say its just slightly harder than doing hood struts, due to the rust and the angle of attack.
Being slid under the car might not be the most comfortable spot, but certainly was more comfortable than being upside down under the drivers dash installing a chipped ECU.

The only trouble we ran into was that we shattered my crappy "husky" brand socket on the second factory endlink bolt we tried to remove.
I put on an older better socket I found in the old tool box, went to take off the bolt, and the husky ratchet broke.
Lesson learned, cheap tools are cheap for a reason...
So we decided to forget about the sockets and proceeded the rest of the way using just my ratcheting combination wrench set I had just bought a few days ago to do an ECU&TCU swap. They broke free the bolts, which we found much more helpful than the bolts breaking the tools.

By far the hardest part of installing Nevin's bar was the uninstall of the original bar!

Once the old bar was out of the way, we had it bolted on loosely fit in less than 20mins. Spent another 15mins making it all even, which wasn't much, I think it was 3 or 4 threads on the endlinks to even everything up.
Doing the writeup (well, picture book) took me more time than installing the sway bar.

I would say the only hard place to get to was the the bolt going through the hub on the wheel side. My 18" wheels gave me the clearance to get my wrench in their, but barely. My 14mm is 6.5in long and it was a tight fit to get in there. With the stock wheels my you may need a shorter wrenches, I know we were wishing we had one, purely for comfort sake

Tools used to Install:
Two - 14mm combination wrenches (I don't own two 14mm's, so I found an old 9/16 in the old toolbox.)
One - 15mm box wrench.

All the bolts I received from Nevin were 14mm.
Endlink wants a 15mm box wrench.

To uninstall the original bar you will need a 12mm. That is what the broken socket is. I think that was the only other size I used.

[Lookin4SVX]

Originally Posted by Blacky

Not only did my old bar look exactly like that but you have the same old red steel ramps that I do.
Just wish the rest of my car looked as good as yours.

P.S. Are you liking the Evos?

Your bar was bad too? Well that sucks, but I feel better now, thanks.
Old red ramps are a hand me down from my girlfriends dad, it was the first time I ever used them.
I was surprised at how much room they gave us to work, they look so small.

Wheres the picks of the blackymoblie? I went through threads started by you but didn't see any.

BTW, don't feel bad, my car is not perfect, the camera is just good to her.
I took some shots of the ugly to show Freeman on this thread: http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/showthread.php?t=54507
I see you posted early in that thread, but if you never returned to it after that, you missed some better pics.
Go check it out, even the ugly ones.

I see you asked about the tires in that thread too, I really don't consider myself enough of a tire expert to have a valid opinion, but here it goes.

Yeah, I would say I like the EVOs, but like I said, I am not a big tire enthusiast.
This is my first time with Hankook tires. Also my first experiment into a summer only tire.
I was running on Continental Extreme Contact (all season) for the last 9 years prior to this on my RS.
These Evo's seem to hold the road really well in the dry, and in the wet they make it feel like it is dry.
Under hard cornering I feel none of that tire wants to roll under the wheel feeling. Then again, I don't AutoX or anything.

Last nights test drive have me pushing them somewhat hard, never lost grip.
Here is a Google map image of my exit, they don't even hint of wanting to break loose going 50 around this:


They also handle this turn at 30mph. Both streets are a 30mph zone, so why slow down?

[LetItSnow]

Originally Posted by Lookin4SVX

By far the hardest part of installing Nevin's bar was the uninstall of the original bar!

Truth. I had to hack off my passenger side endlink.

[icingdeath88]

Originally Posted by LetItSnow

Truth. I had to hack off my passenger side endlink.

I had to drill through the bolt connecting one to the knuckle. POS would not let go.

[Lookin4SVX]

If you guys had to cut and drill, then no wonder it shattered my cheap socket.

[kwren]

Originally Posted by Blacky

Not only did my old bar look exactly like that but you have the same old red steel ramps that I do.

My car looks great... My Swaybar isn't rusted (except surface rust) but my same old steal ramps are much more rusted

Keith

[kwren]

where did this "new BontagerWorks Rear Swaybar" come from and how much does it cost??

Thanks,
Keith

[Lookin4SVX]

Originally Posted by kwren

where did this "new BontagerWorks Rear Swaybar" come from and how much does it cost??

Thanks,
Keith

All answers here:
http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/showthread.php?t=54454