A lot of Comptech bar users managed to break their stock endlinks. Breaking an endlink in mid-corner strikes me as a good reason to step up to stronger aftermarket links.

 

Fug it. If one goes out, I'll just spin. I'm used to it by now. I'll save my bucks for tires.

 

You'll find out soon that the silicone tape will start to deteriorate and bind the bar. The Dow Corning grease is good stuff. I'd yank the tape off the next time it's convenient. My bar made all sorts of odd noises until I went with straight grease. I now "saran wrap" the bushings and it doesn't need greased as often.

One tip, to make a pin adjustment you have to disconnect the endlinks. Between runs you just don't generally have enough time to do that. So, buy an extra pin/washers/nut from Comptech and use one in the full stiff position and one in the next hole down. If you have to back down the bar stiffness it's as easy as pulling the one pin (no taking the front wheels off, no end link disconnection). This is all assuming you're on the typical R compound set-up. I've never had to run more than one hole down from full stiff.

When did they go to naked aluminum for the mounting brackets? Mine are a gaudy "APC" red.

 

That's a great tip Todd! I may have to try that. I don't have any problems removing the pin with both endlinks connected but it sure would be nicer if all I had to do is remove one pin as opposed to remove and re-install.

Now if I could just find a way to access the pin from the top of the engine bay...

 

Gloffer, glad you got this figured out. Since the thread is on the topic...

One has to wonder about the teflon tape...

The comptech bar is sold as a "competition" piece so maybe the teflon tape is really only meant to be used for a limited time (i.e. one race). Is this a normal "maintenance" item for a "race" car (i.e. road racing)?

For those of us that have this bar on our daily drivers and autocross a couple times per month, the teflon tape, if intended for use as described above, is probably not adequate unless you want to do high frequency maintenance. However, my bar creaks (more when cold, 60F and below, outside) regardless of how many layers (1, 2, 3, 4) I wrap on. I tried the Dow silicone grease and it too creaked after a couple of weeks. The grease also collected lots of dirt, I'm now back to tape and creaking.

[QUOTE]tmorrow (Posted on Feb 2 2005, 07:17 PM)

 

Basically, yes... I actually use a piece of plastic from a thick garbage bag. It's put on after full reassembly. I can't post pics. but it's not too much unlike a babies diaper. The "legs" (to the left & right of the bracket on the bar) get zip tied and then the "waist" (around the upper portion of the bracket) gets zipped too.

Honestly, I don't know how much it helps out. After driving in a hard Florida rain a few times it becomes apparent that it's not 100% sealed. I put a small pin hole in the bottom of each for water drainage.

Maybe someone could figure out sometging similar with some 100% sealable shrink wraping.

Bushings with greasable nipples would be even better. That tape blows - throw it in the trash!

 

Thanks, that's a good description of the "wrap," no picture needed.

Has anyone ever tried the green grease from Quickor Suspension? The link below is to one of their pages describing lubrication and poly urathane bushings. I'm tempted to try it, maybe even their bushings if they have some that will fit.

Quickor story on polyurathane and lubrication (green grease)

 

[serious mode]
Are you guys sure that the "clunking" is from the bushings not being lubricated properly?

When I had a Comptech bar on my car, I found that liberal lubrication of the inner bar before insertion into the outer bar prevented the noise even when using the dreaded teflon tape.
[/serious mode]

Here are a couple of photos of our lubrication technique during a recent tech day where we installed the Comptech bar on two cars.

 

I wish I could do that with my bar. It's welded together at one end. Do you have a first gen or something?

Oh, and to address the clunking; yes I can recognize the clunking that is part of the bar's noises. It has started up again after 6 months. It seems that the bar like to be cleaned and lubed about every 6 months in Atlanta. That solves the problem.

The clunking that I was first refering to is part of the aftermarket endlinks. See, I had a comptech rear sway bar on my civic and the endlinks developed some play in their hemi joints. This would rattle.

 

Josh,
The noise on mine (Gen. 2) definitely comes from bushing bind. I thought it may be the inner & outer bars making contact so I used the silicon tape on the inner bar (spiral wrapped all the way down) and slid it into the outer. There is no play in that assembly at all. When the grease gets thin it just starts to get noisey again. It's only a nuisance and I really only care when I have a passenger that must wonder why a Honda makes such ill noises.