the car is a 68 SS396, welded to the lower leaf spring perch are traction bars; they are 29 1/2 inches long and 2 inches wide, they are made from rectangular tubing with a bolt on the end that can be adjusted. my question is are these possible originals or homemade ones?? thanks,jeff

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I believe the factory places a hanger inboard of the spring perch on single leaf cars to counter wheel hop before they staggered the rear shocks. The bar itself was made of an I beam steel slightly dog boned on the ends with holes through them for bushings. Kurt S. if you see this post please correct me if I have bad information. And can you tell us if any 1st gens came with 2 of these latteral bars (is that how they were refered too?)? The rear end in my car has a hanger on both sides and I was given 2 bars and mounting plates uninstalled. The hanger on the driver side has a larger weld bead that makes me think it was repaired or added on. Here are some numbers it it helps
30 3 G1 3894860. Its a transplanted 12bolt from a '68 or so says the reciept I was given. I have been told that pontiacs did come with them on both sides, is that true?

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...DjD
69RS Ragtop
www.fbody.com/members/topless69 (http://www.fbody.com/members/topless69)

I am sure there was only one traction bar from the factory, for monoleaf 12bolt rears in 67-8..if there is a pair someone must have welded another on, and I dont think the factory one was adjustable.

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66/70 chevelle ss396's
69/71 camaros

I just took apart the rear end, leaf springs etc on my '67 RS/SS. It has mono springs and there is just one of these traction bars and it connects into the passenger side of the rear axle housing and I am pretty sure it is not adjustable. In front, there is a bracket that attaches to the frame by two nuts that screw on to two studs from below and a bolt that goes through the bracket into the frame from the side. I bought this car from the original owner and know that none of these components have been taken apart or altered so I am very confident this is the factory setup-at least for '67. I was excited to find that the leaf springs even had the yellow bands with the BJ markings still on them on both sides. These are located about one foot in from the rear of the spring.

its a five leaf spring setup and what i meant by adjustable was the bolt on the tip of the bars can be riased or lowered.

67's hi-pos came with a radius rod on the right side of the 12 bolt. In 68, they fixed the problem with multi-leaf springs.
It sounds like Maross has a pair of slapper bars that someone added to the car.

The 67 hi-po Firebirds did come with a radius rod on both sides. If those look like factory welds, sounds like it is out of a F-bird.

There is a great article on radius rods that Rich Fields wrote on our website.

Denver, I'd be interested in the #'s off of your car and the type of radius rod. The easiest way is probably via http://www.camaros.org/researchdata.shtml
.

Thanks!!

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Kurt S.
www.camaros.org (http://www.camaros.org)

Kurt, I will get those numbers to you in a day or so. I took all of the parts that I removed from the rear end and thoroughly cleaned them before sending them to be sand blasted. I do this to see if any inspection marks or color codes are present that I should put back, on my radius bar were painted about eight orange stripes the sides of the bar. Each are about 1/4 inch wide and they are spaced generally about 1 1/2 inches apart. Have you or anyone else seen these before? They are faint, but definately there.

These markings may have been on the as-purchased steel tube prior to welding the ends.
The steel that fuel tanks are made from usually has markings prior to manufacture.



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Kurt S.
www.camaros.org (http://www.camaros.org)

Hey MaroSS396, is there any chance your car was originally sold in Canada? I found out mine was and it has the radius rod/traction arm on the driver side like the Firebird rear Kurt mentioned. I'm pretty sure my rear is the original since the GM of Canada documentation matches it. Maybe Canadian cars got radius rods on both sides.