houtex

TL;DR: Should have done this a while back. What a difference. Front bar is a piece of cake. CAKE I tell you. The rear bar is a hunk of *STUPID* to install, but once done, it's very nice. The car is MUCH better on the turns, and the clunking over the bumps and such is gone. Thank goodness, that was driving me nuts.

For those who continue onwards, sorry for the book, you poor, adventurous people...

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Now, I'm sure others have their opinions on sway bars and whos to buy or whatever, but I choose the Eibach solution for... no real reason except the mid links of the rear sway bar looked pretty nice, and the price was good.

The kit in question, btw.

But wait, houtex, that's a GT500 kit, not a V6/GT kit, what gives?

Well, I'm setting Awesome up like a GT500 in the suspension, kinda, with the GT500 vert wheels and the lowering 1" with the Ford P springs, and the konis front/back are going on soon, so I figured, it makes more sense to get the GT500 kit and not the GT kit.

Front bar is the same at 35MM and 3 point adjustable.

Rear bar is not, 22MM for GT, 24MM for GT500, so I wanted the stiffer one provided with the 24MM bar. Otherwise, the kits look identical in every other way.

AND... I got it... *ON SALE*. Yay and stuff.

So anyway... today, finally, the knee was good enough to allow me to crawl around under the car and tackle this.

Front bar was first, I can't exactly explain why, but for some reason I thought maybe it was the easier of the two, so get it out of the way.

I was completely correct. Jack up the car in front, jack stands, wheels off, end links off, mid brackets off, bar is *out*. Tada. New bar, the grease up and throw new bushings on the *outside* of the retainer rings (as I'll call them), put the bar on your chest as you lie under the car, put four(4) of the eight (8) washers on the studs on the radiator support, one each, put the bar up there, put the bracket on there, put the locktite-d nuts on there, bar is ready to end link. Put the end links on (I used middle for now, may go rear for stiffer, still deciding) put the wheels on, lower the car, front is DONE. Less than an hour if I was jammin', but as it was my first time, just about 1 hour total.

Very pleased so far. Excited to get on the road now, but I still had the rear bar to throw on.

Turn the car around (because garage space dictated) lifted the rear up, jack stands on the axle for load bearing purposes because that's what is called for. Unbolted the rear mid links, then the ends, and off the old bar came. Yay, easy! Just reverse that and...

No. Not easy.

The mid links upper portions had to be disassembled, greased, and reassembled. Ugh. Messy. But done.

The mid links lower, bar portions had to be assembled to the bar first, which makes sense, I suppose. But the mid link locations are guessed at, at best, which makes the installation a little more messy due to the movin' about that'll be happening. Livable, not optimal.

The mid links lower, bar bushing did not want to go into the mid link, and had to be relatively forced into the link. A little surprising, but ok.

The end caps for the lower bits of the mid links, which go on facing the rear of the car, did not seem to fit very well. And I *almost* ripped out the threads of one of the links trying to get that stupid cap on. GO. SLOW. On this. Chase the threads with the supplied bolt first, and BE SURE you go in straight, 'cause it's aluminum, and it's not very hard stuff. You. Are. Warned.

I managed to salvage the right side link situation, having to re-chase/tap one of the threads, so all is finally assembled. That took *way* too long.

You also have to 'de-nut' the mid link and end link mounting locations, to which the mids are easy, but the ends are fun with the little clippy things, but I got that done and yay.

So on the bar goes now, right?! RIGHT!

And... yeah. Things aren't easy. I figured it out. Probably did it wrong. But the instructions were to loosely put stuff in, then load the axle and tighten things.

Well... I already had the axle loaded, SO THERE. Now what?

I'm stupendous is what.

I put in the bolts for the mid links, just in there, and the nuts on, so they didn't fall out, and then proceeded to put the end link mounts... and they fought a little. I managed to get them on, but in doing so, I had to remove the mid link bolt for the drivers side to get the driver side end link bolted up loosely at all...

Also, the problem was the end links were really... weird. Like, they don't seem much designed for the back. I don't know if the axle is different for the GT500 vs the GT, but... whatever. I put it on. But it's like there's... play. See, the old end links and the nuts all had clips and what not but would semi-align. Without that stuff, the nuts and bolts and plates and what all would move about.

So what happened is that I had the driver's mid link bolt out, the passenger mid link bolt in, the passenger end link all bolted up and 'centered' on the mounting area, with a visual cue on the plate used to put it all together, easily repeatable on the drivers side.

Then the drivers side was bolted up, same cue, so they're as centered as I can get them on the ends. Those are NOT going anywhere now. At least.. I don't think so... We'll see, I guess.

Now... I can't put the one bolt back in the driver's side mid link upper bushing. Great.

So I jacked up the left side of the axle, threw the bolt in, and then reloaded the axle. Tightened up the mid link bolts, put the wheels on, and lowered the car.

Finally.

I went and abused her pretty good (she likes it, she's a naughty girl), and all seemed well, no clonks or clunks or anything, so I guess I did ok on all this.

I'm really curious as to those rear end link mounting situations, but... worst they could do I suppose is shift. I *had* the axle loaded as if it was on wheels, so... I'm guessin' its ok.

Really disappointed in the rear sway bar mounting stuff.

But I am *really* happy with the end result. Car is going to get me in trouble even easier now.



Again, sorry for the book. And if you have any words of advice regarding that rear sway bar, lemme know, I'm all ears on it. It just seems like it's designed... weirdly.. by Eibach.

Thanks for readin!

Jazzman442

Great write up. I have the same kit on my Suburban. Yea I know all my cars have suspension's like race cars LOL. I love these. Call Eiback if you have any questions. They are really good at support. I am planing the same kit for my GT. Enjoy the kits. it really makes a difference. The onlu issue I have ever had is don't let the bushings go dry . Lube them every so often.

houtex

Oh, I have a grease gun with Mobil One Synthetic Grease rarin' to go. I plan on doing the zerks every oil change at least.

Lessee... there's the two each LCAs, the one tie rod (which will go away when I get the bumpsteer kit), the two panhard bar, and now these four (two front mid brackets, two rear end brackets.)

The rear mid links don't have zerks, so... I'm not sure how to keep them lubed except to take them off, and that... kinda sucks. They are NOT meant to be played with very well, so... Hm.

Thanks for the advice!

Jazzman442

I have to take mine apart and lube them I had to get grease that will not hurt the bushing material they use I got Super Lube. I could never imagine just how loud these can get when you don't grease them!! Sounds like a barking walrus. LOL!! Takes a little time to lube but the stuff is really sticky and looks like it will last. Is the kit for the Mustang Red?

houtex

The bars are the red ones. I would have rather to get black or hammertone, but that's ok. Blue springs, Orange shocks/struts soon, Red sway bars, Hammertone LCAs and Panhard both with Red bushings, BlacK FCAs, Silver front endlinks and rear midlinks, Gold cad plated sway bar brackets mid fronts and end rears... a kaleidoscope of suspension parts.

The lube is seriously sticky and white/clear and freakin' messy as all get out.

I lubed the HECK out of those bushings, though, so I am hopeful that they won't be loud any time soon. And being poly, they should last longer than that nasty rubber stuff Ford uses.