The 67 to 70ish Camaro / Firebird anti-sway bars can be made to work well.
It takes some modification to the leaf spring retainer plate and making bar to frame supports and attachment brackets. The OEM, GM supports are too short but again, with some lengthening, can be made to work.

The anti-sway bars is a couple inches too short in length. So you'll need to add about 1-1/2" in width (inside) to both of the lower plates, and with holes to attach the GM end brackets. This sounds a lot more daunting than it really is. Once you get a bar, and the supports, lay it out under the car, you'll see that it's not that difficult an adaption.

Good thing is, there is as I recall, four different diameters to choose from. So matching the front and rear bar diameters should be easy.

One thing... Since your trailer is attached to the "center" mass of your Lark, running a rear anti-sway bar or not is not a huge thing. Springs and shocks are much more important in controlling the vertical load. Don't get me wrong, an Anti-sway bar WILL help in any...case, it will help the overall cars dynamics while going down the road.

Be sure that you do a little homework and match the front bar to the rear bar diameter wise. This will help greatly in the cars overall handling, (oversteer vs. understeer). So, with the addition of a bar in the back, you may want to thing of putting a larger bar in the front.
Again, Camaro, Firebird, Chevelle, etc., bars will work with just building brackets to mount the bar to the frame, and beefing up the lower control arm "lip", (some don't do this, I would !) drill a hole...bolt it all together.

All in all, a 1-1/4" GM front bar and a 3/4" GM rear bar, will make your Lark handle MUCH...better than you ever thought it could. You won't have to worry about the "fish bowl" on the front seat !

Mike

For towing at reasonably safe speeds, the rear bar is, by far most important on your 62, since it already has a 3/4" bar up front. You can easily upgrade that front bar though, by installing 63 and later frame mounts. For the rear, in the 1980s I installed a rear bar from a 1970s MOPAR car in my 62GT. The MOPAR was something sporty like a Barracuda or Charger, but I forget which. It was a fairly easy install but required narrowing a few inches. It also required nothing the car's frame lip about 1/4". I have also installed 3-4 of Dave T's rear bars, and they are a simple bolt in. They also work well.

Besides towing's night and day difference, rear bars also make the car list less in sweepers, including cloverleafs at intersections on Interstates. NO downside to installing a rear bar, other than $ cost.

In a perfect world, you'd find an Avanti rear axle with anti-roll bar, traction bars and springs.

If you haven't already replaced them, all new rear spring bushings will make a noticeable difference.

jack vines

Even for someone who is not performance minded, I find that radial tires and a stock rear sway bar make for a well handling and driveable car.

A Member here who might have an extra 1953 to 1958 "Y" Body, Rear Stabilizer Bar and Hardware or a Parts Car, the Part Cost would be less for Used, but we probably can't help with the Shipping unless someone lives on the Border and has a Flock of Carrier Pigeons to carry it over the border.

These were Only used on '53/'54 Land Cruisers, '55 President State, '56 to '57 President Classics and '58 Pres. 4 Door Sedans.

Avanti Stabilizer Bars do not fit non-Avantis, due to being Under the Trunk Floor where the Gas Tank is on all but Avantis.

Those bars are 5/8" diameter, while Dave T's are same bar, but 3/4". He also includes the spring mount plate, if needed, for a slightly higher fee.

Is there an ideal ratio of rear bar thickness to front bar thickness?

Suspension has been rebuilt all round. HD rear leafs from SI/Detroit Spring and HD coils up front. Gas shocks on corners. Front Disk brakes and rear flanged axles. These are all great suggestions, all worth investigating. Any others?

Thanks
Warren

THAT is going to be one Mean Bugger to Align the Front End for quite a while, if there is ANY truth to this posted Yesterday, which I am sure there is!


What I am saying is, if the car sits up nice and proud, i.s. rebuilt suspension with new springs, it is unlikely to even achieve 0 degrees of camber, let alone positive camber. Evan at max adjustment, it will likely still be slightly negative. That's why I say just set it to max toward positive, then leave it alone. The lower the Stude sits, the more positive camber you can achieve through adjustment. If it's a low rider, like most 55 and earlier, you can dial in plenty of positive camber. This is due to differences the upper and lower 'A' arms' geometry. Put another way, Studes with sagging front springs are more likely to be adjustable to spec, than those with a rebuilt suspension, especially if new springs were included.

Any negative camber causes the tires to wear on the inboard side, and toe in actually helps to offset the wear a bit. Still, radials do not like to be towed in much at all. So the 1/6" to 1/18" is to compensate for slight outward splay while going down the road. Ignore the Shop Manual's specs for toe in/out, because they are for poly tires, radials need slightly less.

I recall a tech article, where a piece of angle iron was used to relocate the upper 'A' arm's inner pin mount outboard by maybe 1/4". It may have been in one of Dick Datsun's books. So it seems my above info was, at one time, common knowledge.


Last edited by JoeHall; Yesterday, 07:31 PM.

Not sure, but it appears Studebaker used 5/8" front and rear, on any 57 and earlier Stude, and 3/4" up front and 5/8" in rear in 58 and later. Not sure how concerned they were about either end, since on the 56J they used the wimpy 5/8" bar up front and mounted exactly as on later 6-cylinder LARKs. If ever there was a need for a larger front bar, it was on the 56J. Over the decades I have installed 63 and later V8 bar setups on every 56J I ever owned or worked on. It results in an instant, noticeable difference in overall handling, and plowing under on sharper turns. Of course it's not, "correct" for 56J, so not advised for TQs.

I remember well the Photo of Tom Mc Cahill in a Mechanics Illustrated Mag. Test Drive throwing a New '56 Golden Hawk, hard into a Left Turn and almost getting Air on the Left.
Afterwords he said something like; the Hawk has more than "Normal" lean in the turns, and probably attributed it to the "Heavy" Packard Engine, but never noticed that the Front Stabilizer Bar is not Frame Mounted, which I think has More to do with it's Poor "Stabilizing" ability than it's Diameter.

"In the Day" it was a well known "Fact" that GH's were Nose heavy and easily spun the Rear Tires as a result.
Now we know that it was NOT quite THAT bad, just a bit a bit more "Forward" weight and a few more Lbs. than a Supercharged 289 '57 GH.

Rich,
The difference between front bars is that extreme leaning over, and a sense that the car is about to roll over (a very real sense). With the thicker, better mounted front bar, the 56J heels over far less, and the rear end is more likely to break loose before the car would roll. You still get the G force inside, that puts you against the door, but not the feeling that the car's about to roll over. A rear bar takes that improvement to a slightly higher level, but the biggest difference is when going to the 3/4"front bar with 63 and later mount. The earlier, 58-62 bars are the same bar, but with a link mount to the frame, which is too wimpy. The 3/4" bar with 63 and later mount is the only was to go in ANY V8 Stude. IMHO

The rear bar pays for itself best when towing. Without a rear bar, the rear end of the towing vehicle feels like it's on BBs, especially if using a tow bar. That was my experience in 1986, tow barring the 56J behind the 62GT, the 1700 miles from Hastings NE back to my home in SoCal. Apparently the Good Lord watches over the young and dumb. LOL

Note that the earlier '63 Avantis used the earlier front anti-roll bar mounting. I had to replace one of these with the later type mount on 63R1506, which I once owned.
-Dwight

The "Earlier Type" you are talking about Dwight, was not as bad as the '53 to '57 Non-Frame Mounted one that Joe is talking about.

The 1958 to 1962 Stabilizer Bar was the frame mounted one with the Tiny "Rods" to connect to the Frame, better, but not as good as the one that Joe and I prefer, the '63 Lark/Hawk/Late Avanti "A" Frame Bracket MountType.

Since Early Avantis were introduced in May '62 they had several "1962" Parts on them before the '63 Parts were available.
Another was the Rear Spring Mounting Plates for cross Pin Lower Mount '62 Shocks.