[DeTomaso] looking for 7/8" rear bar

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/30/10 12:52:20 PM, kenn_green at yahoo.com writes:

> Since the 7/8 rear bar seems universally accepted as a good thing for 
> most Panteras, maybe a group buy would be in order?  I think they would be 
> pretty cheap to make if enough people want them.  Does anyone have a spec for 
> the steel used?
> 
Almost any high-carbon bar stock will work; most are not heat treated but 
simply cold-bent. Heat treat is tricky; I once tried to straighten a stock 
solid swaybar for another car that ALMOST fit, by using a torch to ease the 
bending. During final fit-up, I broke the 7/8" thick bar in two with my hands! 
Carroll Smith says they often used cheap mild steel tubing on his open 
wheel racers when trying to tune the suspensions.   
Simply copying the stock design also works as long as its a solid bar. 
Reason is, tack-welding the travel-limiting washers on a solid high-carbon bar 
seems to be OK, but done to a lightweight hollow swaybar, the bar ALWAYS 
cracks at the weld(s), so most vendors no longer offer hollow swaybars. 
For the hollow bars I make, I use clamp-on limiters and rather expensive 
thickwall 4130-steel tubing (still un-heat-treated). The pertinate article 
(Swaybar Tech) was in the Jan '08 POCA News. My 2¢- J DeRyke