Front sway bar on 76 530i?

[canada karl]

Was the stock bar 16mm?...looking to order new rubber mountings....source?

[T.Hanson]

sales@blunttech.com

Steve in Minnesota is as good as there is for BMW parts, locating, fair prices, shipping. Bavarian Auto, BMP for their stock BMW inventory and performance alternatives.

My opinion, unless you are into a future total suspension performance goal, the urethane bushings won't feel different from stock.

I would like a magic way for the suspension bushings to be new, by themselves, to feel the difference. My closest visual inspection sees no cracks, obvious signs of wear. I have no expertise in rubber deterioration, hardening, to guess if buying replacements sitting on a parts shelf for the same years,...

I've left mine alone.

[Sog]

I think it's 20mm+. The rear appears to have been 16mm stock, but as I found out when I went to put on the rear bushings, I don't have a stock rear sway bar. I had to drill out the bushing in order to make it fit. I tried the fronts to see if they'd fit on the rear and they were too big. They might be 22mm, but I can measure when I get home tonight.

PS: I got front & rear from the aforementioned Steve.

And confirmed: Rear was 16mm stock as shown by realoem: 33551103492
Front is anywhere from 21-23: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showpar ... Id=31_0026

[canada karl]

to all who responded. Sog... I'm not clear on why there are 3 different sizes of bushings ...were there 3 different sway bars made 1 mm apart? What am I missing?

[Sog]

They must have? Here's what I ordered from Steve and verified it's a 23mm: 31351118393 It's item #2 on the link, but item #3 with the 3 size designations, is actually the bracket that holds the bushing in place.

If you have a micrometer, it'd be a quick way of determining what size your sway-bar is for placing an order.

[onovakind67]

to all who responded. Sog... I'm not clear on why there are 3 different sizes of bushings ...were there 3 different sway bars made 1 mm apart? What am I missing?

The 23mm bar is 20% stiffer than the 22mm bar and 43% stiffer than the 21mm bar. Perhaps the engineers were trying to fine tune the suspension.

[RonDwyer]

I agree on Urethane, unless you are competitively racing you won't notice any difference until they start to squeak.