What's the best material to use for adding a rear W-30 sway bar?

[Monty]

I've taken a couple tentative shots at starting my Lindberg '67 442, but I need some advice on increasing its accuracy. If you've built the kit, you'll recall that Lindberg tried to mold something resembling a sway bar onto the rear axle, but for some reason they chose to fill in all the space between it and the axle with styrene, making it look more like a braced drag racing rear end.

Here's a pic I found of a completed kit that someone built without modifying the rear axle.

Long story short, I ended up filing the sway bar and its excess plastic off. It looks a little more authentic, but being a W-30 car, it needs a correctly done sway bar to be complete.

Do Plastruct or Evergreen offer a round rod flexible enough to take the bends needed to make this fit correctly? If not, what would you recommend? (The rear sway bars on these cars were probably less than 1" in diameter)

Please note: I'd prefer to modify the kit's pieces rather than swap parts with other kits.

Bonus question for the experts: Has anyone figured out how to make the front end look more like the 1:1 car? it's got that Revell-'69-Mustang-something's-just-"off" look to it.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Monty

[VW Dave]

I'd use aluminum or brass rod for the sway bar

[blunc]

solid core solder is easier to bend than aluminum or brass rod and should hold it's shape well enough to replicate the sway bar and flat jaw pliers can be used to flatted the neds where it gets bolted to the trailing arms.

you should be able to find a size that will work at a Radio Shack or Fry's Electronics (or whatever version of electronics supply is in your area).

[AzTom]

It's hard to see in your photo but it looks to be there, just molded onto the bottom of the axle. I don't think it should be connected the axle at all, just the at the ends.

The easiest would be to remove the molded on and bend one out of fine wire. I like using the green craft wire, come in several sizes and can be bend easily.

On a side note, the inner front fender wells should be red.

Edited June 11, 2013 by AzTom

[The70judgeman]

How about a paperclip. Not the standard ones...the larger guage clips.

[Monty]

solid core solder is easier to bend than aluminum or brass rod and should hold it's shape well enough to replicate the sway bar and flat jaw pliers can be used to flatted the neds where it gets bolted to the trailing arms.

you should be able to find a size that will work at a Radio Shack or Fry's Electronics (or whatever version of electronics supply is in your area).

Thanks for all the ideas, guys! Lots of viable solutions, but I think Mike's suggestion will work best for what I'm trying to accomplish, especially in regard to how the bar attaches to the trailing arms.

[Art Anderson]

solid core solder is easier to bend than aluminum or brass rod and should hold it's shape well enough to replicate the sway bar and flat jaw pliers can be used to flatted the neds where it gets bolted to the trailing arms.

you should be able to find a size that will work at a Radio Shack or Fry's Electronics (or whatever version of electronics supply is in your area).

Solid solder is great for a lot of things model-wise, but in the size (diameter) needed for say, a 1/25 scale sway bar, it would, IMO, be darned near impossible to make it straight, and keep it that way while handling it. I'd strongly suggest K&S brass rod, perhaps .020" which scales out to 1/2" on a 1/25 scale model. .040" would be closer perhaps, scaling out to 1" in scale though, but K&S doesn't make it that size. K&S does make 1/32" which scales out to slightly over 3/4" diameter, which would be almost indistinguishable from .040" (I have a hard time seeing 5-thousandths of an inch difference, for example). Also, somebody will check me if I'm wrong here, but I have never seen a sway bar flattened at the ends and just bolted to another part or surface. Rather, I seem to recall that every setup of this sort I've seen has been secured by collars at either end, and that collar fixed to a link leading to the frame, rather than the trailing arms--given that trailing arms on a coil spring suspended solid rear axle move up and down with the movement of the axle.

Brass wire has the advantage of being straight to start with, and with small flat pliers, it can be bent accurately to shape, and yet in between the bends it will still tend to hold it's straightness.

Food for thought?

Art

[AzTom]

I agree with Art, although the craft wire would work fine and easier to bend and paint. The craft wire I'm talking about here comes in straight length about 14 in long, painted green. It comes in several sizes from real thin to about 16ga. You get about 100 pcs for a few dollars.

The sway bar on this car does have flat spots near and at the ends to bolt it to the lower control arms. I'm guessing here, but the diameter should be just over 1in.

Here is what it looks like on a real car.

And on a 1/18 diecast.

Another note on the W-30 is the battery goes in the trunk. The 442 should also have the trim at the bottom of the truck and the upper taillight inner rings blacked out.

Edited June 12, 2013 by AzTom

[azers]

Gm was famous for the sway bar ends being flattened and drilled so they could bolt to the inside of the lower rear control arms. Inside the control arm was a tube so the arm wouldnt crush when you tightened the nuts and bolts securing the sway bar.