Daily Drive Without Front Sway Bar?
 

Just curious. Does anyone do this?

I'm having a heck of a time removing the top mount of the left front sway bar link on my 1998 986 (its frozen from corrosion). The bottom came off the sway bar easily. The car is my daily driver and I have already mangled the link so there is no turning back at this point. I saw a couple other posts that mention driving without a front sway bar but nothing definitive.

Just looking for personal experiences.

Thanks!

I've never done it but Im not sure I ever would. If you never break 30 mph and go real slow around turns I suppose you might not notice a difference. But then what's the point of driving this car?

Remember that the the proper name for a sway bar is "anti-roll" bar. It literally counteracts the car's natural tendency to roll outward (and over) when making turns. Read a bit about it and you'll understand.

Id figure out a way to get the remaining drop link off, replace what's broken, and reinstall everything.

Out of curiosity, what got you in this pickle to start with?

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"Out of curiosity, what got you in this pickle to start with?"

No manner of heating, soaking the top mount with penetrant, hitting with a mallet/air hammer/impact wrench will loosen the top mount. I have resorted to cutting the ball joint end off of the top of the link to introduce more penetrant and will continue tomorrow. I need the car to get around during the day. 1998 New Jersey car with a salty road history.

Not to be pedantic, but I fail to see what the problem is here. I have probably taken out several hundred of these; corroded, broken, and generally beat to Hell; and they all came out.

Driving the car without the bar is fine as long as you never have to hit the brakes hard, or do a sudden avoidance maneuver, which at the minimum would end up damaging the car, or even killing you.

So, I have to make a couple of assumptions here: You either lack the tools to fix this, or you lack the knowledge of how to fix it. Either way, the answer is simple: Take the car to someone that does before this gets really stupid.

I think everyone's exaggerating a bit here. The sway bar is to minimize body roll in turns. In extreme driving, yes, you could lose control from too much body roll. But that's in EXTREME conditions. The sway bar has no effect during hard braking, unless you brake and turn at the same time. Like in an avoidance maneuver as JFP mentioned. Even then, you'd have to turn and brake pretty hard.

But I don't think the OP is asking to permanently delete it. Since it's a daily driver, I'm guessing he/she's asking about driving it until they can figure out how to fix it properly.

I've driven my work van for weeks with a broken front sway bar link and could barely notice at all. I bet there are many people out there who have broken sway bar links and not even know it. Just go to Ohio, where they don't require annual safety inspections.

10DigitVIN, I'd be quite comfortable driving the car for a while until you can take it somewhere to cut the link off so you or they can install your replacement. And that's what I recommend you do. Go to a local mechanic's shop and ask them to just cut it off. They do that all the time, as JFP has.

I do not know how it would influence this particular car and how it would feel.
However, I had driven a few cars in my not too long life that were never equipped with swaybars (front or rear) and I lived.

Go drive, it will be fine.
Try the car, if you feel that you need to, on some empty road with a few more or less sudden movements to see how it behaves.

It will roll more to the sides, may be weird to handle, but otherwise will drive just fine.

It is not like driving without brakes or one tie rod end disconnected.

Actually, I did drive without brakes (only with the hand brake half OK) twice in my life.

Yay! Safety third!

I'm just kidding. In the words of Tom Segura - go ahead, squeeze her tits, have some fun ;)

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Thanks for the constructive feedback piper6909.

10DigitVIN

you only thanked Piper 'cuz he's the only one who told you what you wanted to hear, hahaha. :dance:

J/K.
But seriously.

I don't know how badly you've mangled stuff, but these parts are cheap enough that I didn't bother trying to sell them from cars I parted-out: I simply threw them in the landfill stack. Buy an ebay swaybar and end-links, or hit-up this forum and see who's got one they took off to replace with aftermarket; they'd probably send it to you for the cost of shipping and a 6-pack of beer.

Wanting to drive without it makes no sense. I mean, can you get by for 4 days while you're waiting for parts to arrive via FedEx? Uh-huh. yup. But don't do more than that.....
That Don't Make No Sense!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM-G0bkl8MQ

Maytag, why are you still lingering here? Didn't you sell yours!?? :D:D

J/K Nice to hear from you, bud! :cheers:

well, I sold ONE of them.... but still playing around with this one..... Mostly I'm just here to keep you in line..... :dance: :cheers:




http://986forum.com/forums/uploads02/__451623280418.jpg

It would be nice if someone could! :D:D :cheers:

Maytag, you beat me to it! I love this forum, it's like people watching only with words.

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Thanks EVERYONE for the feedback. Much appreciated. Unfortunately I took the car out last night, went into a corner too hot, rolled it and am now dead.

See you soon!

I dig your 50’s 550 hardtop scheme with red and yellow accents over the classic racing silver!

Thanks for updating us on what happened!

Well..... that seems.... um..... definitive, at least?

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So what's it like on the other side? Must be pretty good, no one has ever moved back! :cheers: