Rear sway bar shims
 

Ok pulling the rear apart in my RA IV Judge, rear sway bar looks to be never removed or played with it had three shims right side Only. So my question is how did they determand that it needed shims ? And how many ? And how they were placed ? Thanks https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...a3695148ae.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...bcd90c531e.jpg

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

I install the bar after the suspension has settled and all hardware is torqued. Install the bar without shims and run down the nuts to remove the slack . Install the shims to fill the gap between the bar ends and the control arms. Evenly if you like or to center the bar.

Most 70-72 goats I parted over the years had shims on the rear bar. A related point to watch is a lot of the NOS rear bars floating around today are still available because they were defective. Something wrong with the shape of them that eats the control arm bushings if you install them.

In organizing over the last few years, have been going through parts tubs, box after box, old ziplock bags of small parts. Nearly all pulled in the 80's & 90's. Last week, again, came across 3 more A-body rear swaybar shims. It was very common to pull 3 from between passenger side lwr control arm & the bar on '70-72 GM A bodies.

Can't remember pulling any rear swaybar shims when pulling rear bars & arms from under early 442's ('64 & 65's). '64's definitely had partial boxed lower arms, & the center area of the bar was formed slightly different on those very early 7/8" rear swaybars.

I doubt it because those sway bars were produced much later than when the cars were built.

Sway bar shim
 

I had 1 on the driver's side and 2 on the pass. I checked the assembly manual and it has a note to shim as required, maximum 2 per side. I'm sure they did what they had to on the line to get the fit they needed. Mine were pretty rusted away on the ends, middle was solid. Bolt heads were pitted but I could still make out the SBC head markings, but they were very faint.