Hi Guy's, just replaced all my front suspension and steering and came to the anti roll bar / swaybar bushes and they are very slack. Bought a set to replace all and they seem slacker than originals. I bought a kit for Mercedes 320 as numbers on bushes were Mercedes, anyone else find this ? I always thought the bushes had to be a tight fit.

 

I have had the brackets off several times which hold the sway bar bushings. Both the fit of the bushing inside the brackets and the bushings relative to the sway bar itself is tight. It would be a job to slide the OEM bushings off the sway bar and slide new bushings back on because of the tight fit and the fact that the bushings are rubber.

 

I'm not sure what clearance you have but the roll bars come in different sizes, in our case the NA and SRT differ by 3 or 4 mm I think. (.120 or .160 diameter)

 

Quite possible the wrong ones were ordered/installed, it seems...

 

I did actually buy a set for the 320 slk but they are the wrong ones. Now have the correct ones which are snug.

 

So, the SLK320 has a heavier front roll bar than the NA Crossfire ?

 

Would not surprise me, but I suspect a parts numbering error in the original shippers shipment?

 

I believe that sway bar diameter in ascending order is SLK 320, Crossfire, Crossfire SRT. The SLK 230 fits in there somewhere also.

 

The SLK has a thicker diameter heavier front sway bar than the SRT-6. The metal mounting brackets are the same for both cars. The SLK just has a larger center diameter in the rubber bushings to accommodate their heavier larger diameter sway bar. A good upgrade mod for tight cornering. Squirrel Crusher

 

Using the forums search feature,search> H&R Front Swaybar Improves Autocross. I'm not saying that the H&R front sway bar is any better than the SLK front sway bar. But the SLK front sway bar is an improvement over the SRT-6 front sway bar. With less body roll up front,it helps in keeping the rear tires down on pavement during hard cornering. I laid both SRT-6 and SLK front sway bars down together on the floor. Slk was much larger diameter,but the very ends of both bars were the same. Rob,Needswings was checking out the diameter differences on my car with the SLK bar mounted and the SRT-6 bar loose in hand. He could probably tell you if the H&R is really a better bar than the SLK bar. Squirrel Crusher

 

The stock SRT front sway bar is 25mm … pretty stiff. The H&R front bar is 30mm. I've got it on my car but I'm still trying to get the balance right. I changed too many things at the same time.

Les

 

Old thread I know, but I’ve just changed my front anti roll bar/sway bar bushes and thought I would leave my experiences for anyone else researching like I was.
I have a ’06 Crossfire NA manual. The inner bushes I needed had an ID of 25mm, and the outer bushes ID of 18mm. This is different from the SLK 320 sway bar where the inner bushes are the same 25mm, but the outer bushes have an ID of 22.5mm – I know this because I bought the wrong set initially! However, the SLK outer bushes have the same external dimensions as the Crossfire ones (i.e. will fit the Crossfire brackets fine), so you could have a cheap ‘plug & play’ upgrade to the “slightly thicker at the ends” (22.5mm vs 18mm) SLK sway bar (as has been mention else where on the forum).
The part number for the inner 25mm bushes was 124 323 44 85. I initially tried with a Febi 17680 bush which should have be a direct replacement. This fitted the bar, but was slightly too small to fit the holding bracket easily. As a result I went to my local MB dealer and got the OEM part (at £8 ($10) each!), but these did fit very well and were made of a much better rubber.
The outer 18mm bushes are part 124 323 23 85. I used Meyle 014 032 0121 as an alternative (and only £5 ($7) for the pair), which fitted perfectly and the rubber was of good quality, identical the that of the MB inner bushes I bought.
Hope this helps someone in the future!

 

Just finished installing the AMG front sway bar with provided bushings. Bar is hot rolled solid and 8% thicker than stock bar. I will let you know how it does after AutoX Sunday. Total kit (bar & four bushings) about $240 from NeedsWings. Twenty minute install.