Hey Everyone,

I'm new to the forum though hardly new to the world of bloodying my knuckles underneath volvos.

But on to the question: I recently bought 240 Wagon in excellent condition but have been slightly less than thrilled with the suspension. So I crawl underneath it and find ... no anti-sway bar?!?!?

(1) Is this normal for a '93? My understanding was that some older wagons came without. But a 93?

(2) Can I mount one? I say yes. The mounting points seem to be there ... at least in the trailing arms. I haven't checked the front. But maybe someone out there can verify?

Many thanks!

 

pretty sure most of the 240/740/940 series only have a front swaybar, none in the rear.

I recommend the IPD USA Swaybars, they are stiffer than stock and work great. you MUST install the front IPD before the rear, or your car will be dangerously unstable on hard turns (the front antisway has to be heavier than the rear, or the car will 'push' on hard turns in unpredictable and dangerous ways).

 

whoops, eat my own words. stuck my nose under our 1987 240GL sedan (wife is original owner) and it has a rear sway bar. the 7/9 wagons usually didn't.

 

However, many wagons did NOT have a rear sway bar from the factory. In hard cornering, a heavy rear sway bar, such as the 25mm IPD bar, will create inside wheel lift. It looks cool when racing but could be disastrous with a heavily loaded wagon. All wagons had, at most, puny rear bars.

 

My 1993 240 had stock small rear sway bars, but I upgraded to the IPD sway bars in both the front and rear. Definitely worth it! if your looking for even more improvement, see if you can get a hold of 242 gt strut braces, the ones that go from the strut to the firewall. I'm pretty sure all 240's are pre-drilled for those and they make a big difference. If your looking for even more performance, IPD makes a nice chassis brace, but it was a real pain to drill for it. I also got both of those from IPD, but i'm sure you could find at least the strut braces on eBay.

 

Actually, the tower to firewall braces can be made from conduit using a hammer and a drill; the o.e. GT braces weren't much better.
As for rear sways, for whatever reason, beginning w/ the 240 Volvo started using sway bars that simply mounted to the trailing arms. While they do reduce body roll, they honestly don't do much for traction. In hard turns, the inside tire will lift without the driver knowing because the car isn't leaning. The 140's and older cars used a sway bar set up that was attached directly to the axle and to the body via bolts through the floor pan under the rear seat.

Still gives good anti-roll benefits, but because the sway bar is tied to the body, the driver has a better feel as to where the rear end is. Honestly, I've yet to see a 240 that handled better with, say, a 25mm rear bar than with a 23mm.

 

the IPD 740/940 wagon rear swaybar I installed secures to two points on the trailing arms, at the rear shock and at the axle. doing a seat-of-the-pants virtual engineering exercise on this, it seems to me that when the car is in a hard turn, and the inside wheel is being unloaded, the swaybar transfers more of the inside spring force to the outside wheel. by securing it to the trailing arm rather than the body, you definitely isolate road noise from the chassis'

the swaybar sits *RIGHT* under the rear axle and differential, which makes putting a stand under it extra tricky

 

Rather than flog an old horse I'll just post this link for reading...
Maybe I'm just dense, but the IPD Rear Anti-sway.. - Turbobricks Forums

 

interesting discussion. I kinda skimmed some of the middle of it what was going around in circles, but I didn't see anyone point out that the trailing arms have rubber cushions where they attach to the axles, and the 700/900 trailing arm to body are not pivots but rather single point rubber joints.

the body CAN lean while both wheels are flat on the ground, QED, the trailing arms CAN torque relative to each other, so the IPD design swaybar DOES reduce that torque. yes, in the process of doing so, it unloads the inside wheel and adds load to the outside wheel, and under extreme cases, I could see the inside wheel lifting off which could definitely get scary, but for the level of sporty driving on bad roads I do around here, it sure seems to have kept things under tighter control and reduced body wallow.

 

Thanks for all the technical information. Our go to Volvo supplier here in Germany is Skandix.de. They have what appears to be an older version of the IPD sway bars (not blue, 25 mm only both front and rear) and want 419.00 EUR !!!

Anyone wanna send me some IPDs from the US

 

So, are they stocking the older goldish cadmium plated versions?

I've heard they hold up better than the new painted ones but have no personal experience. Generally, companies change things up to reduce costs, however. A prime example was IPD's new version of their adjustable cam gear...not nearly as convenient but much cheaper production costs.
Since you are in Europe and shipping on bars would be outlandish, you might check other manufacturers of after market sways...Australia's Whiteline comes to mind.

 

I suspect shipping of the nearly 2 meters long and probably 20kg package would kill the deal.

 

re: blue vs gold, next time my car is up on a proper lift (as opposed to jack stands on my driveway) I plan on annoying my mechanic by coming by with a couple cans of 3M undercoating and spraying down all the new stuffs to forestall corrosion, so it will all end up dirty black.

 

LOL! That's exactly what I did w/ the 245. On the GT, I'm seriously considering undercoating everything.

Shipping is definitely high on sways but I was thinking just possibly from Oz to Germany might be less than from Oz to the US. Worth a shot. The cheapest thing would be to just run double stock bars.

 

Some nice lookin' undersides being presented in this thread! And thanks ... I'll check the OZ site for shipping to Deutschland. But to be honest I've pretty much given in to Euro pricing when it comes to autos. I've got an old BMW I tinker around on as well and I'm constantly amazed at the stuff here vs. what ya'll have access to price wise. And that's for a "German" car! Why should a brick be any different? Ok. I'll quite whining.

The Skandix sway bars are kinda gold colored (pic). I'll probably end up getting 'em.