240 vs. 280 rear STOCK sway

[Zvoiture]

Does anyone actually OWN a rear sway bar for a 240 that fits into those cute little brackets that come pre-installed on something like '73-on? It looks identical to the 280 and accepts the same bushing and cover and bolt and everything BUT they are in different places!!!! Needless to say, a 280 stock sway bar DOES NOT fit into these brackets. Well...it fits INTO them just fine, but the eyelets for the endlinks are hanging out back somewhere around the e-brake lever. On closer inspection, (lucky me, I have a 280 and a 240 side-by-side in the gee-raaage) the brackets on the 240 are welded on the same structural member that crosses the underbody and contains the front diff. and control arm mounts. So a bar installed on a 240 would have to be bent either FORWARD, to go around these items, or DOWN to go under the diffy mount (blocking all the bolt heads). On the 280, the brackets are well forward of the diffy mount and are welded to one of the multitude of structural members back there. The bar is perfectly straight and lines up with the heads on the control arm bushing retainer bolts. Hence the 'arms' on the 280 bar are much too long to use on a 240 and they hang out way rearward of the end-link area. If anyone has a bar that fits into these brackets, I would love to see it.

Here is the 11/72 alignment:

[Zvoiture]

And here is the 11/76 alignment:

[Zvoiture]

And about half my collection of Z sway bars. NONE OF WHICH WORK!!!!!

steve77

[Victor Laury]

ok, the photo for the 11/72 is too dark to see. On my 72, with the bolt on mounting points, is about 3'' further aft than the location on your 280. Notice the location of the bracket in respect to the seat-belt-retractor pocket.

Does this look like the same location for the 73?

[Zvoiture]

Yup, that's basically the same location as the factory mounts. I would still be interested in seeing a factory one. I know this has been discussed on an 'Alan' thread before, but don't remember the outcome. The brackets were welded on in US from '73-on, but were rear sway bars ever INSTALLED in them?

steve77

[260DET]

According to How to Hotrod and Race Your Datsun, all (presumably US) 240's were fitted with a 16mm front bar and no rear bar. The 260Z and 280Z models came fitted with a 18mm front bar and 20mm rear bar.

It seems that rear bars of various sizes were available from Nissan for the 240, they are kinked between the mount locations, the 260 on ones are straight there.