My plan to fix/strengthen rear sway bar brackets (archive)

After looking more closely at the ripped-off bracket and the frame, I'm certain that I'm going to get a "new" bracket off a donor car. While it would be nice to be able to use an acetylene torch or an air-powered die grinder, I think I'm gonna have to use my Dremel when I head to Strictly German near Road Atlanta later this week. I don't want to mess with a gas tank, nor do I want to try to get 100s of feet of air hose out to the donor (nor do I think Bobby has enough hose in his shop).

Below are a few pics of the bracket and how I plan to fix it. I only have a "real" camera ;) so I had to use my scanner to do these quickly.

This is a front quarter view of the bracket:

Here it is from the top. I was rather shocked to see the rust between the two pieces as my car is virtually rust-free. This looks like old rust (pretty dark), so I wonder if it happened during manufacturing, before the phosphate bath & undercoat.

After looking at the frame and the bracket, I plan to weld plates on the front and rear, with the front plate overlapping the frame member. This will put a portion of the interface between the bracket and body in shear instead of simple tension.

These are the rough dimensions of the front plate. When I actually do decent measurements, I'll provide those along with pics of the completed job.

What bothers me most about all this is the potential for rust in the future; I might be able to cover the welds externally, but the coating inside the frame member will certainly be burnt off and I don't know how I'll be able to get to that.

Follow Ups:

Rust prevention: Drill small hole and spray. Ivan 22:43 12/16/2001 (0)

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