That looks about like a 67-72 chevy halftone pickup rear suspension setup. I wondered about how that would work on my elcamino once. The '70 long bed I had, handled great for a worn out truck and road really good too.
The G body shuffle.
- Thread starter Rt Jam
- Start date
The longer the arm, the better the ride and stability. But to adjust it you need to move the ends farther vertically.
I won’t claim to know anything about making a g-body handle but I never had any issues with good bars and stiff bushings to go fast in a straight line. Gusset the lower mount forward point and use the diagonals to connect the upper To the lower front.
Sorry for the OT post but I too purchased those huge sway bars back in the day...installed the front with no issues but for the life of me, I couldn't get the rear bolted onto to the oem lower control arms. The bar was making contact with the bottom part of the arms where it flares up. I didn't think it was wise to relieve that area to make it fit and just ran with a stock rear. Got the bright idea that aftermarket lowers might be the hot ticket only to be disappointed that the bolt holes on the lower control arms I bought wasn't flush with the arms and I still couldn't wedge the bar between the lower control arms. Many years later I saw a picture of the rear Herb Adams sway bar installed on a G-body using Edelbrock lowers. 💡 I never got that far so I can't comment as to how it would have handled.
Ironically you mentioned using the Blazer rear sway bar as I've considered going that route since at some point in the venture I acquired a 68-72 A-body 12-bolt and there was no point in trying to make the Herb Adams one work. The H&R Parts rear sway bar is what inspired me to go in that direction since they do claim it helps with the G-body shuffle and could be applied to the A-body 12-bolt. Please comment if anyone can confirm or deny this. ...and this for your reading pleasure... https://gbodyforum.com/threads/blazer-rear-sway-bar.75437/
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Wow, lost track of this thread...
Yep, I remember having a hard time with the Herb Adams rear bar. Later I bought the ATR 1 3/8" rear bar which I was able to bolt on but the binding was very obvious, especially since I replaced the stock trailing arms with aftermarket with spherical joints. Rubber bushings might have worked better with one of those big rear bars
Later I got the Spohn rear bar (the handling one, not the drag one). It was OK but aftermarket parts are always compromised in their design somewhere. Maybe they're better now?
Then I finally did the Blazer rear bar with custom adjustable end-link mounts I fabricated myself. Not ideal by any means but I like it better than any aftermarket bar I've seen.
For the front bar I always liked the Herb Adams but the end-links failed (heim joints don't like road salt!) so now I have a stock 1 1/4" F-41 bar on the car. One of these days I'll have to get new heim joints and put that back on.
The "truck arm" suspension was a Nascar thing back in the day. Not the best for a street car me thinks.
In Herb Adams' book, "Chassis Engineering", he talked about liking stiffer anti-roll bars and softer springs for street cars. The theory being that keeping the tires in contact with the road with the softer springs worked better. I've had stiff springs and I've had soft springs. I definitely prefer the soft spring/stiff(er) bar setup.
Oh, and a pet peeve of mine - urethane bushings in suspension joints. Not talking about end-links here, I mean in suspension articulation points. Urethane is not a bearing material. I get the idea behind it, I just don't agree. Herb Adams didn't like urethane either. That's why his front bar used heim joint end-links and rubber bushings way back in the day.
OK, enough rambling... Carry on!
Yep, I remember having a hard time with the Herb Adams rear bar. Later I bought the ATR 1 3/8" rear bar which I was able to bolt on but the binding was very obvious, especially since I replaced the stock trailing arms with aftermarket with spherical joints. Rubber bushings might have worked better with one of those big rear bars
Later I got the Spohn rear bar (the handling one, not the drag one). It was OK but aftermarket parts are always compromised in their design somewhere. Maybe they're better now?
Then I finally did the Blazer rear bar with custom adjustable end-link mounts I fabricated myself. Not ideal by any means but I like it better than any aftermarket bar I've seen.
For the front bar I always liked the Herb Adams but the end-links failed (heim joints don't like road salt!) so now I have a stock 1 1/4" F-41 bar on the car. One of these days I'll have to get new heim joints and put that back on.
The "truck arm" suspension was a Nascar thing back in the day. Not the best for a street car me thinks.
In Herb Adams' book, "Chassis Engineering", he talked about liking stiffer anti-roll bars and softer springs for street cars. The theory being that keeping the tires in contact with the road with the softer springs worked better. I've had stiff springs and I've had soft springs. I definitely prefer the soft spring/stiff(er) bar setup.
Oh, and a pet peeve of mine - urethane bushings in suspension joints. Not talking about end-links here, I mean in suspension articulation points. Urethane is not a bearing material. I get the idea behind it, I just don't agree. Herb Adams didn't like urethane either. That's why his front bar used heim joint end-links and rubber bushings way back in the day.
OK, enough rambling... Carry on!
The NASCAR adapted 61-72 GM C10 series truck-arms work just fine for the 'streets'. They can be crap as well (tube construction w/Poly bushings).
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