Sway Bar Support on Differential Question

[KirkV]

Gentlemen, and Ladies

I have a shell valley built car that has one problem left that I do not care for and I am looking for suggestions. When I got the car a year ago I noticed one of the drips it had was a leak on the rear differential. It has a 9 inch ford rear end in it. The rear sway bar was hooked to a bracket that was bolted to the face of the differential an the leak was coming from around that area of the rear end.

When I tore it down what I found was someone had removed the original two bolts that went in the rear end and replaced them for the bracket installation, they were probably too short. They took two 3/8 inch bolts and peened the shaft of the bolt to get a snug fit in the rear end when they put on the punkin. The stress of the sway bar caused these bolys to wear the peening out of course hense the leak that comes out of the face of it.

I am considering using 1/2 inch hardened precision shoulder bolts in this application. But in order to do this I will have to drill out the rear end, the punkin flange and the bracket to 1/2 inch. This would definately tighten up the sway bar bracket as well as not give the play in the hole for the oil to leak out of. I do not know if there is anything else I should try instead of this and I am asking for help?

Anybody care to comment or have anything else that I should do to remedy this situation?

Thanks Kirk

[xlr8tr]

any pictures? I'm not sure why the sway bar is attached to the diff housing: the usual mounting method that I am familiar with is the swaybar ends are connected with a link at each wheel, and with a bushing to the frame on each side, it's not connected to anything in between.

[KirkV]

I have actually found my answer I believe. A co worker does some racing and pointed me to a AFCO aluminum panhard bar that has a pinion mount bracket for a ford 9 inch rear end. It looks like the cats meow for taking the stress off of 2 bolts on the differential and applying it across the whole rear end. It actually looks like the welded bracket on the frame would line up with the pinion frame and be what was supposed to be installed here.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have built this car instead of buying one used lol, at least I wouls have made my own mistakes.

Thanks Kirk