[DeTomaso] Techno question: maintenance of sway bar SphereBalls or SphereBars (?)

JDeRyke at aol.com JDeRyke at aol.com
Mon Aug 2 14:28:44 EDT 2010


In a message dated 8/1/10 7:43:04 PM, cengles at cox.net writes:

> 1)     Do those white plastic sphere ball thingees need any lubricant or 
> not?
> 
> 2)     Proper adjustment of Sphere Ball/ Bar swar bar mountings it to a) 
> set the car on the ground and get the suspension settled, then  b) tighten 
> the bolts of the sway bar Sphere Ball/Bar mount?
> 

1)- There are several types of sphere-ball copies around. Hall's originals 
were hard polyethylene balls in hard black-plastic housings. No lube 
required.   On the aluminum take-apart housings, I'm not sure- check with the mfgr. 
In all cases, countersunk flathead allens give more clearance between the 
bolt heads and the spinning u-joints; minor impact is often what loosens the 
bolts. Early assemblies didn't use countersunk bolts.
2)- The bars should easily slide back & forth inside the balls, tightened 
or not. The hole is very closely sized for std bars to reduce slop. If you 
run plated bars, the plating is about 0.001" thick and that's enought to seize 
a bar end in a std ball. Carefully sand out the hole in the ball(s) until 
the bar slips thru easily but not sloppily.
With rubber or plastic bushings on the ends, you need to make the lower 
a-arm level with the frame so the bar can be assembled. With sphere-balls, that 
shouldn't be necessary since the balls pivot and the bars slide in/out. If 
you have to jack around to get the bars to fit the frame clamps and balls, 
the car's frame or a-arm(s) are probably tweeked. Try flipping the bar 
end-for-end to see if that makes the usually hand-bent bar fit your particular car 
better. If it's still off a bit, clamp the bar in a big vise and tweek it 
with a large cheater-pipe, in the appropriate area to fit the bar to your 
car. Even 1" solid bars can be bent a little in this manner without too much 
effort. Plated bars can be bent without cracking the plating if you're slow 
and careful.
In all cases, the car's rear subframes should FIRST be corrected with a 
well-designed adjustable bay-brace (not aluminum!) so the usual collapse has 
been corrected and the rear wheels can be aligned properly. Otherwise, 
progressive frame collapse will continue and any rear bar assembly will eventually 
bind up and not work correctly. My best guess- J DeRyke



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