Sway Bar Installation
I purchased a set of front and rear sway bars from Ireland Engineering for the cab a while back but never got around to installing them. Over the Christmas break I decided to pop them on the 1975 to eliminate some of the body roll on my 1975 BMW 2002.
My experience was typical of most owners that have done this modification. The rear was a pain in the ass. I ended up sanding the urethane bushings down to get enough clearance to re-install the stock clamps. Even with the sanding, getting the bolts started required using a longer bolt in one of the holes and "C" clamps to get everything lined up. I ended up stripping 3 of the original bolts and needed a couple of trips to home depot to source new bolts. This would be sooo much easier with the rear subframe out of the car, but I managed to get them in. With the bar in and centered, I did notice that IE must have made a change to the linkage to the bar. In some of the photos on the web of previous installations, the heim joint was bolted to the outside of the aluminum fixture connected to the bar. On my linkage the heim joint was centered between the aluminum fixture. When I installed the linkage though the support holes and tightened them up, they angled in towards the differential and not straight down as expected. I am assuming that this is correct for the centered heim joint.
The fronts were super easy and went in without a hitch. The hardest part was removing the stock front sway bar and figuring out how to remove it from the suspension. I set it for the stiffest setting, front hole and took it for a test drive, drives like it is on rails.
Mark92131
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