New Suspension woes-Bilstein and Addco

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PA Dodger

PA Dodger

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I'm trying to get the front suspension wrapped up for cruising season. Imagine my surprise when I open the Bilstein shock boxes to find the front shocks don't come with dust covers. The instructions say to remove the dust cover from my old shocks and reuse them. The old cheap shocks steel dust cover won't fit. I buy $400+ shocks and I have to mess with them? really? Did everyone else's not have dust covers? What did everyone else do about this?
Secondly, I go to bolt up my Addco front sway bar and it doesn't seem to fit. The bar seems to be about 1+" wider than where the end links fall on the lower control arms. What am I missing? I'm not even going to comment on how forked up the mounting setup is for this bar. I have used Addco bars on other cars before with no problem.

The car is a '69 Dart convertible that needs better handling but won't be a canyon carver. That's why I didn't buy high dollar sway bar setups.
 
Is the sway bar wider with the suspension at ride height or hanging?
 
I think the Addco bar is suppoded to attach with L brackets added to the lower shock bolts rather than attaching to either of the factory tab locations that were OEM.
 
I just got my Bilstein shocks with the same surprise of no cover, what the F%#@, $400.00 and they can't put a cover on them, disappointing!
 
William-I have the lower control arms hanging but jacked up to near-ride height. Maybe I'm not close enough to ride height.
Redfish-I got that covered. I'm using the brackets mounted to the shock bolts.
Swinger340Canuc-I thought maybe they just forgot to put them in the box. I guess not. Did you use anything for a boot?
 
I'm still collecting the parts for my resto so I'm a long ways away from installing them but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them, I'll be watching to see if you or someone else has a solution.
 
That's good info, I would have been furious about the dust cover, do QA1/Fox have the same problem?
 
QA1s and Fox dont have dust sheilds either. My front Bilsteins didnt have them but the rears did. Oh well, these shocks are built with double seals and are made to protect themselves just fine, dont sweat it. Ive seen Bilsteins take a rediculous amount of abuse and hold their charge and not leak a drop.
 
72BBSwinger said:
QA1s and Fox dont have dust sheilds either. My front Bilsteins didnt have them but the rears did. Oh well, these shocks are built with double seals and are made to protect themselves just fine, dont sweat it. Ive seen Bilsteins take a rediculous amount of abuse and hold their charge and not leak a drop.
Click to expand...

If they are double sealed I'm relieved and think they will hold up well. As far as the ADDCO bar goes-a little research here on FABO shows that I will be making my own bar mounts. Apparently the "one size fits all" jury-rigged mounting doesn't actually fit all.
 
One-size-fits-all never fit anything I ever worked on...
 
I had the same issues with the addco Front sway bar. I ended up talking to Dick at Firm-Feel. His sway bar fits and his mounting brackets for the k member are a lot nicer.
 
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