I am custom building a Antiroll bar similar to the wolferacecraft bar. Mine will be a bolt-on, but in order to bolt on I need to weld some 4"x4" 3/8" thick plates onto the frame in order to get the strength for the bolts to screw into.

I am using a Mig Hobart 125 welder which says it is only good to 3/16" thick.

Can I make some speed adjustments to get more penetration on a 3/8" thick piece, or maybe run several passes on it? Any ideas?

I gave my welding reply to you on the Hobart site. You won't find more accurate welding info than at those sites.

Now, you cannot make a Wolfe style bar bolt-in by adding flanges to the frame side...won't work and will be weak. The reason for this is that the support tubes on either end are welded to the inside of the frame and also welded to the inner edge of the factory coil spring pocket. if you bolt the tube to the frame, but do not attach it to the inner edge of the coil spring pocket, the mount will be very weak and the design/operation compromised.

Also, my bar is mounted above the upper control arms which I have found to be a less than ideal location. I used to have an interference problem before I designed & built the instant center relocation bracket you copied. Also, the bar location limits space for tail pipes over the rear.

IMO, the most attractive location to mount an anti-roll bar is inside the trunk exactly like the Dick Miller kit is...then run the link bars down through the coil springs to attach to the axle housing. It's more complicated to install, but is near invisible from under the car...stealthy in a way.

BTW, I had a 125 amp Century welder which was also rated to 3/16"...but that is using flux core wire, not 75/25 gas mix. Using the gas mix, my testing showed the welder to be marginal at joining 1/8" material in a butt joint configuration...less on inside corner welds.

Also, anti-roll bars should be made of chromoly tubing which needs to be Tig welded.

10secBu,

Acutally my design is a little different. It is the same design as one of my NHRA stock eliminator friends is using.

The design utilizes a 1.75" .090 thick tube what has 3/8" steel plates attached at the ends. This is the mount tube. I then have a 1.75" .090 thick tube mounted on top of this with 1.5" 1/8" thick flat steel as braces. From that, I am running oilite bushings that will be machined for a press fit inside the upper tube. The "torsion" tube is 1.25" .156"wall chrome moly with aluminum arms.

This is then welded rearward of the rearend with the arms pointing forward.

I believe you have a drawing program so I will send you the autocad drawing of the design

Todd....you have mail smile.gif

Which pieces are you saying will be aluminum? The rods that connect the torsion tube to the rear housing, or the arms that extend out from the torsion tube?

I would not use an aluminum arm attached to the torsion tube unless you can spline it to the round tube. A through bolted design is poor engineering IMO as the aluminum will eventually wear and the bolt holes egg out and be sloppy. An arm welded to the torsion tube is the strongest option...again both the arm plates & torsion tube chromoly and Tig welded together.

Why not weld in a permanant crossmember to the frame and have the torsion bar unbolt from the crossmember. This would eliminate needing such heavy plate as 3/8". The crossmember tube could be directly welded to the frame, maybe a 1/8" thick reinforcing plate of you felt it needed it.

If your insistant on making the whole bar removable, here is how I would do it (can't believe I'm giving up all my trade secrets ;) )

Make the mounting plates from 3/16" material...no need to be thicker...1/8" would even do. Come up with a hole pattern for your bolts, but try to keep the holes about 3/4" in from the edge...maybe even 1". I assume your mount bolts will be 3/8" fasteners.

Next, hold the plates up to the frame and mark the holes from the plate to the frame. Also at this time, scribe a line around the plate perimeter for later attachement/alignment. Now take your mount plate and weld four 3/8" nuts to the back side of the plate. Next step is to enlarge the holes in the frame large enough for the plate to sit flat and clear the nuts and the welds (probably a 3/4" to 1" hole...depends on how large your welds got...Tig is nice to keep the welds small, eyt strong).

Now you can hold the plate up tp the frame and the nuts will be inside the frame. Your original 3/8" thick plate deal would have had issues of bolts bottoming out on the frame unless you drilled through the frame rail. Next step is to weld the plate to the frame, bolt the anti-roll bar plates to the frame and install the crossmember and weld to the removable plates.

This method will be more work, but does a nice job of giving blind fasteners...done it several times on different projects.

Hope that description made sense...it did to me tongue.gif :D .

Well I did take some of your advise on steps to aligning the bar. I did however use the 3/8" thick plates in order to elminate the need for nuts and just tapping the 3/8" thick steel. I ended up using my Hobart 135 mig welder and welded the 3/8" thick piece to the frame. The welder to my surprise did extremely well, and I acutally saw the rainbow colored heat penetration on the 3/8" thick piece. I ended up welding the 3/8" piece on three side and then ran a weld on the bottom side of the frame to the 3/8" thick piece. To test I took a 10# sledge and pounded on it...no problem. I am however still going to use 2 of the 4 1/2" bolt on each side to bolt the 3/8" thick pieces to the frame for added strength. I have enough room to run a magnet inside the frame to get the nuts started on the bolts with lockwashers and loctite.

Next step is getting the crossmember up and getting the other mounts welded to that. I also have drilled with a hole saw into the 3/8" piece about halfway through in order to get the tube to set inside of the mounts rather than just a butt connection. So that will be the next step, one that is done it is time to determine the length of the arms....

BTW...10secBu what are the lengths of your wolferacecraft arms?

Your idea of splining is a good idea, do you have any idea of who can do that?