Does anyone have a set of instructions on installing a sway-bar kit on the 1994-1996 XJS Convertibles?

My front/rear kit finally came in from The Driven Man but NO Instructions, the invoice just said check their website for a link to them. The link is broken, I called them and they said Yep, Link seems to be broken and we don't have a backup copy.

Lotta good that does. Should be the same instructions though regardless of the maker.

Pictures of a set installed would also help. Tried a web-search for both instructions and pictures but no luck so hoping someone here installed a set and still has their instruction sheet and took some pictures.

 

SG
Your car will already have a front ARB. If you look at it you can see how it is fitted. The problem you will have is undoing the brackets that hold the bar onto the chassis rails, as they are obscured by the subframe, as you will see.

On my car it is necessary to support the engine and swing down the subframe a bit to change the ARB. If it is the case with six cylinder cars I am not sure. But a big job if so.

The rear roll bar is hard to fit with the exhaust in place. If you do not already have a rear ARB to follow, the suspension end fixes onto the radius arm (you need the radius arm that has the little brackets welded to the top), and the bar itself is bolted up to the sloping floor in front of the axle that forms part of the axle 'sideways tunnel' in the body. You should see four studs, two each side one above the other, already in place. The brackets bolt up to these.

Greg

 

I put one of these on a car once before but those was from FasterJags on a 1994 model, and they both went in easy as could be, just removed the wheel on one side and slipped them in and didn't have to unbolt anything else except to remove the old front bar, and as I remember the rear had threaded holes or studs or something for the rear bars brackets to mount to the floor. Don't have that car anymore to look at.

On the bar set I got from DrivenMan we can't get them to slip in from the side, the front bars brackets seem to be different, and there is no holes or studs for the rear bar and can't seem to get it to fit in at all, looks almost like we'd have to lower the whole rear section to get it in. I know we didn't go through all that on the 1994 model I had once so we're confused and completely bumfuzzeled at how they could be so different so now need pics and/or instructions. I mean, we're not even sure of the orientation of the rear one from DrivenMan, it keeps looking almost like the hump goes BELOW the rear diff which I know doesn't seem right, I have seen some race cars (track only) that was like that but never a street car.

 

Rear swaybar body mount top left of photo:

And mounts visible outer area of forward axle tunnel, with reinforcing plates behind them:

 

That's part of what I needed, Neither of my current cars has those straps or studs. So now I know what they look like and roughly where they go.

I don't suppose anyone has any measurements like from the center of the stud on each side to something on the body left-to-right or distance between the stud on one side of the car to the ones on the other side, and then up/down that would tell us where to mount the studs. Left to right would be easier to guess at and if we knew the distance between left and right studs we can just center them, but up/down is more important, too far up or down and you can end up with too little or too much "at rest" tension on the bar and it wont perform as well as it should.

 

The way the rear swaybar links work, they will support the bar side to side fairly well if bolted up tight. Then I would offer the bar with it's brackets up to the body and simply centralise it from side to side. And with the way the swaybar links work, it is impossible to have any residual tension in the bar when fitting it, there is no way for it to bind up or get out of square unless the bar has not been bent squarely.
The swaybar mounts are just past the curve of the bottom of the floor and just inboard far enough to be on the flat of the panel they bolt to. The panel can be accessed from behind the rear seat if you wish to clamp a plate behind the panel when you tighten the bar mounts up.

 

I installed DM front bar, I believe 1" & the rear one I believe 7/8". The fr. bar is no picnic. In the rear I removed the exhaust, both radius arms because the small bushs had to be removed in order to weld the brackets to the arms. The rear link bush that connects the bar to radius on mine fell out . You must put washers on both sides in order to keep the bush together in the links.
IMOP I really don't think the F&R bars are worth the time, money or aggravation.
also IMOP I think DM, Faster Jags, V12's went down hill on customer relations. I bought a lot of things from all three through the years. Would I recommend any of them, NO !!
Lawrence