Quote:
Originally Posted by MAStuart
I was told that leaf sprung cars did not all come with sway bars or the brackets welded on . I don't know if this is true or not.
Thanks Mark
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The very earliest chassis sent to the USA did not have stabilizer bar mounting features. That didn't last very long as it was cheaper to get AC Cars in include them on all chassis than pay SAI employees to make up something and weld them on and all that means when ordered.
Street and most race (CSX2431 doesn’t count because it had many non stock systems tested on it) including the first Daytona Coupe before 427 Cobras were developed the rubber bushings for the bar was a 1950s Ford part and the clamps to fix them to the chassis were hand fabricated from hot rolled steel flat bar. I don’t know if SAI fabricated the clamps or had them made but today that are pretty rare. It literally took more than three decades for me to get unmolested samples of original clamps in my hands to reverse engineer into drawings. Drawings done, I still haven’t found steel stock to match what originals were made out of. I have a steel sample on order from another place to check out right now.
By sometime in 1965 the clamps and bushings were quite different. At least some Cobras finished in 1965 and some 427 Cobras finished in 1966 used the same parts for a front stabilizer system, example CSX2497 and CSX3265 front stabilizer bar systems were the same.
I can't recall who anymore but decades ago at a SAAC convention one of the ex-SAI race team told us he was hired in as a general worker and his first job was put brackets on new chassis that didn’t already have them.