over's GT

rear panhard rod is full of ballast beads, for noise?

when I lowered my car a couple weeks ago and changed to an adjustable panhard rod I was suprised to find the stock bar was heavy and filled with beads (almost like an Indian Walking stick)

this is likley for noise and vibration absorbtion from the the rear end

I wonder if earler cars did not have this type of bar and that was reason for some rear end noise complaints.

I heard they were retro fitting a weight to the rear end housing to correct when brought in (I have no weight connected to my housing my car was built in late March '05)

I noticed a slight rear end wine after the new bar (aluminum w/ rod ends) was installed only when crusing at speeds over 40 in higher gears (low load) but as soon as I folded back my rear seats (they had been down since I bought it) the noise is not noticable

the bar I installed is a quaility alluminum race type part with rod ends and R & L threads for on car adjustment around $100 on ebay, looks like a $200 part

over's GT

any input from people that replaced bar on there own cars would be great

give your build date, type of (stock) bar, type of (replaced) bar, if you had a weight/dampner on axle housing at pumpkin, if you have or had rear end noise, solutions

RRRoamer

I your panhard bar has spherical rod ends on it, THAT is were your noise is coming from. Even one with polyurethane ends will be a bit noisier than the stock bar with it's rubber bushings. But the metal to metal contact from spherical rod ends is VERY noisy.

I'm not sure why the stock bar is filled with beads, but I would assume vibration damping would be a big part of it. Especially high frequency vibrations. I wonder how folks with polyurethane bushings came out?