Over the weekend I took a panhard bar that I bought at the wrecking yard and cut off one end in order to shorten it. The bar was off a 2010+ Mustang. Each end of the bar has a rubber bushing (as opposed to a heim joint). The bar itself is hollow, however imagine my surprise when I cut it open and out poured lead (?) buckshot. A search of the webz shows a couple of other guys who have discovered this and asked why - but only speculation in the answers. To clarify, the buckshot was packed tight so that it did not slosh around.
The ideas that spring to my mind are either: a) NVH dampening. Maybe the rod transferred too much noise up into the car frame so in addition to the rubber bushings they threw some "fancy mass" at it, or b) added mass, however I immediately ask "then why not just use a solid bar?" as well as, "but wait - the panhard bar isn't really much of a part of the unsprung mass of the rear end".
That's all I got! What do we know about this?
It’s probably the mental equivalent of an “air gate” net contraption. I’m sure Cooter, Thibideaux or Beaudreaux said it was awesome so other like minded folks gave it a try.
I can say with 100% certainty that it was an NVH bandaid, because they did the same thing on the 2005 S197. The S197 brake system was one of my programs BITD.
Lead is about 30% denser than steel, so if it packs tightly enough a beam filled with lead will be heavier than a solid one.
If its odd, and screwed to a Ford, it NVH stuff. They seem to spend a lot more time grafting weights onto things than they do making it balanced in the first place.
_
HalfDork
6/3/19 10:34 p.m.
They did it on the explorer and a celica I had.
freetors said:
AnthonyGS said:
It’s probably the mental equivalent of an “air gate” net contraption. I’m sure Cooter, Thibideaux or Beaudreaux said it was awesome so other like minded folks gave it a try.
I don’t like being paid in change or raw eggs anyway.
Sparkydog said:
Over the weekend I took a panhard bar that I bought at the wrecking yard and cut off one end in order to shorten it. The bar was off a 2010+ Mustang. Each end of the bar has a rubber bushing (as opposed to a heim joint). The bar itself is hollow, however imagine my surprise when I cut it open and out poured lead (?) buckshot. A search of the webz shows a couple of other guys who have discovered this and asked why - but only speculation in the answers. To clarify, the buckshot was packed tight so that it did not slosh around.
The ideas that spring to my mind are either: a) NVH dampening. Maybe the rod transferred too much noise up into the car frame so in addition to the rubber bushings they threw some "fancy mass" at it, or b) added mass, however I immediately ask "then why not just use a solid bar?" as well as, "but wait - the panhard bar isn't really much of a part of the unsprung mass of the rear end".
That's all I got! What do we know about this?
The shot is steel, not lead. I have quite a bit of it from the Saleen Watts Link conversions in the late 2000's. It was a shock to the fabrication shop guys that cut the original panhard rods down to reuse for the Watts link members. As Angry noted, it is for NVH. The shot I collected is doing duty in my shot bag for panel beating...
AngryCorvair said:
The S197 brake system was one of my programs BITD.
Your hard work has been stopping me from injuring myself and others for almost 14 years. Thanks!
Doing this to handlebars is a common trick in the motorcycle world to reduce NVH.
Cooter
SuperDork
6/4/19 7:28 a.m.
AnthonyGS said:
It’s probably the mental equivalent of an “air gate” net contraption. I’m sure Cooter, Thibideaux or Beaudreaux said it was awesome so other like minded folks gave it a try.
I think I would have remembered that...
Yep, NVH. Same reason my old Roadmaster wagon (and every Roadmaster wagon) came with a factory trailer hitch to tie the frame rails together. And these funky weights sprinkled throughout the exhaust...
maschinenbau said:
Yep, NVH. Same reason my old Roadmaster wagon (and every Roadmaster wagon) came with a factory trailer hitch to tie the frame rails together. And these funky weights sprinkled throughout the exhaust...
i think that's the biggest transmission output shaft spline i've ever seen...
AngryCorvair said:
maschinenbau said:
Yep, NVH. Same reason my old Roadmaster wagon (and every Roadmaster wagon) came with a factory trailer hitch to tie the frame rails together. And these funky weights sprinkled throughout the exhaust...
i think that's the biggest transmission output shaft spline i've ever seen...
It's probably not the spline, but rather the driveshaft itself.
So if the buckshot is for NVH - what is it achieving? Is it because the relatively long PH bar acts like a guitar string and vibrates/buzzes at a certain frequency so they damp it out with the buckshot? Or is the bar transmitting a road vibration up the length of it? Based on what everyone wrote I'm going to rule out that it was to add mass to the unsprung weight of the axle.
Here's my buckshot collection:
Sparkydog said:
So if the buckshot is for NVH - what is it achieving? Is it because the relatively long PH bar acts like a guitar string and vibrates/buzzes at a certain frequency so they damp it out with the buckshot? Or is the bar transmitting a road vibration up the length of it? Based on what everyone wrote I'm going to rule out that it was to add mass to the unsprung weight of the axle.
Here's my buckshot collection:
Basically, the guitar string analogy, but maybe a little bit of the road/tire noise/excitement too. The shot is not packed so tight that it cant move, so the small movement between the shot absorbs some of the energy of the vibrations. The end result is the shot rubs against itself and the inside of the panhard bar, creating a small amount of heat (energy converted).
As a sid note, I think the shot is actually formed by blowing metal dust/chips thru a fairly hot flame sheet, where it gets semi-melted and results in what looks like big weld spatter. At least the material I have looks that way.
