Mysterious suspension thumping identified.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I had assumed that the passenger front strut was giving up the ghost and was rattling and thumping over rough roads. But I was wrong.

I was shocked to find that one of the sway bar mounts (passenger's side) was gone. Even the little tab of metal with the slot for the piece that clamps over the bar is gone as well as the clamp. It looks like the driver's side mount was broken some other time and welded back together. Actually it appears to be intentionally welded together so that it would have to be torched out.

The sway bars on this car are larger diameter than on my others.

So, now I'm going to have to either replace the cross member or I'm going to have to have a piece welded on in order to hold the sway bar in place.

Is it just me or is that a fragile design? Yes, I know they lasted 30+ years, but I'm not wild about it's fragility.

I'm considering changing where the sway bar mounts to the car, to mount it to the front sub frame, instead of the cross member. A simple mount like a camaro. It'll be a pain to drill holes in the sub frame and then weld in a couple of nuts, but surely it would be a little more solid having two bolts, rather than one bolt and a tab on each side.

So, anyone else experienced this failure?

[alotawatts]

Is it just me or is that a fragile design?
So, anyone else experienced this failure?

People joke about German 'Over-engineering' but this clamp is 'Bad' engineering and it is a semi-common problem.

[Karl in KS]

Is it just me or is that a fragile design?
So, anyone else experienced this failure?

People joke about German 'Over-engineering' but this clamp is 'Bad' engineering and it is a semi-common problem.

...especially when a larger sway bar is put in. That's why I used the Metric Mechanic setup instead.