This week we will discuss sway bars on ’62-67 Nova’s. Four- and six-cylinder and two- and four-door Nova’s built by the General with the economy in mind had this very important part left off of them at the factory—on purpose!
As the years have passed, this addition to your Nova is one of the best bangs for your buck. Nova’s have had a bad rap for terrible driving. If you do one thing (other than rebuild the front end), install a front and rear anti-sway bar!
How To Install Anti-Sway Bars On Your Chevy Nova
The original bar is available on all ’62-67 V-8 cars and all station wagons (regardless of engine size.) Most V-8 swappers fail to recognize this wonderful improvement nor do the 6-banger boys think about it. V-8 or no V-8, the product is awesome. Over the years, as technology improved, the sway bars have been mass-produced. We do not let one of our personal cars out of the shop without at least having a front bar installed.
After years of procrastination, we finally installed a stock bar on our ’63 convertible. The stock bar is 11/16-inch diameter—not huge but sufficient to help. With this car being mostly stock and a six-cylinder powering it, we decided the stock bar was a good choice.
The stock bars have been fairly easy to find over the years, the tough part is to locate the inner U-brackets that mount the inner sway bar to the lower cross member. Either way, we installed the stocker on a red bench seat convertible and the improvement was at least 60 percent—enough to impress me!
Aftermarket sway bars are available for the ’62-67 Novas: 1-inch in the front and a ¾-inch is available for the rear. All or our aftermarket bars are sold with poly bushings to enhance performance.
Bars for the ’68-79 Novas are available and are a great addition, too. Also worth mentioning is the F-41 rear sway bar. This is a very rare GM option, we have had only three cars in 20 years that had this option.
Installing the aftermarket or stock bar is very simple. The lower control arms are all made the same and have the holes in them or the end link bushings. There is a washer insert that is missing in some of the lower control arms. If this is true with your car, you may need to tack-weld some washers in place to help keep the end link bushings centered in the hole. Once this is done, simply bolt the bar in place and hit a corner. You’ll be glad you made the switch.
All parts needed for this project include:
- Sway bar kit- front – 1″ diameter with poly bushings for ’62-’67 Nova’s
- Sway bar kit- rear – 3/4 diameter with poly bushings for ’62-’67 Nova’s
- Black coated front sway bar kit 1-1/8 diameter with poly bushings for ’68-’74 Nova’s
- Front sway bar kit 1-1/8 diameter with poly bushings for ’75-’79 Nova’s
- Rear sway bar kit 7/8″ diameter with poly bushings for ’68-79 Nova’s
- Front sway bar inner bushing 11/16 diameter for ’62-’67 Nova’s
- Sway bar end link with bushings for ’62-’74 Nova’s
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