mx5cartalk.com

Hey guys, thought I'd pick your collective brains here about this.

The car is an '89 NA6 import. Sway bar mount on driver's side looks fine:



...but the mount on the passenger side is broken, at both attachment points to the chassis rails



Curiously, there are no bolts holding it in, looks like it has been welded there!

Has this happened to anyone before? Any ideas why one mount might be bolted to the rail while the other is welded?

And lastly - where can I get another bracket for cheap?

It's not unheard of them to break but usually when fitted with thicker after market sway bars. Not sure why the bracket would be welded on. The brackets on my NA8 had bolts in them like your first pic.

Nasty, Had the same thing happen to a holden panel van I had 100 years ago .Like Garry said mine was from an after market sway bar and was on the rear, good luck with the repairs, maybe mania or a wreckers if they are normally bolted.
Cheers
Dale

With the Aussie $ running high this also might be an option?

http://www.racingbeat.com/resultset.asp ... mber=54121

J

They are welded on.

Fairly rare to have it break on a non race car, but it does happen.

Those Racing Beat ones work in theory, but there is a guy over in the US that has had his broken 3-4 times even with the RB kit fitted.
The majority of the stress that breaks them is torsional, not compression, which is what the RB brackets stop.

Anthony Wodford Racing (AWR) in the US have a heavy-duty mount that replaces the whole bracket with a super strong one.

Is your anti-sway bar adjustable? and if so, is it set on the hardest setting, putting excessive stress on the mount and end-links? Apparently this is the most common pre-disposition for breakage.

Thanks for the responses.

As far as I'm aware, the sway bar is stock. The brackets are welded to one chassis rail, and bolted to the other. There's a whole lot of stuff that's not making sense to me at the moment

Looks like I'll have to give Mania a call for a replacement bracket, unless you know where else I might be able to find one?

Also, is that a power steering line underneath that the broken bracket is rubbing against?

Interestingly mine broke the drivers side one which was welded (bolted on passenger side) a couple of years ago. I got Carco Exhaust (Russell b uses this website) to weld it up. You can see break is in the same position as yours rodent. At that time Russell was making a setup similar to racing beats. I put one in and have had no problems since. The blue section is what Russell made and I fashioned up the remainder. His number is 02 62531396.

http://img407.imageshack.us/g/img1677b.jpg/

Ah, nice work trader.
Not sure I'll need the additional bracing yet as I'm sure this is a fairly one-off thing, far from being a common complaint on these forums.

Called Mania yesterday and spoke to David - apparently the bracket is meant to be both bolted and spot-welded on. Brand new they should cost about $60ish.