suppose one of the two main brackets had broken a bolt and subsequently swiveled around and the bushing is missing-----can I drive the car safely without it until the new one comes in? It is still held in by the end links and the other bracket.

Thanks Jeff
(sorry, this question is really for my 1980 450sl mercedes, not my 86 3.4 gt.)

Regardless of what vehicle it is for...

Either the bar must come off or you must fix the bracket.

Not only is it not safe to drive like that, the bar can be damaged permanently.

There is tremendous force across that bar. The odds are good that the other center bracket could fail with no further warning. It will likely do this in a turn. The sudden load change could easily make the car go out of control. Depending on how the bar is supported and what is around it, the sudden snap of the bar or bracket can take out other parts near by or jam the whole front end.

Since you have to fix both center brackets... you should also replace the end links. They are probably just as bad off as the center that already failed.

------------------
Edison Carter: When did the News become Entertainment?
Murray: Since it was invented.

The Ogre's Fiero Cave (It's also at the top of every forum page...)

Thank you Mr. Ogre!,
I will not be driving the car until it is repaired. I believe my wife may have pulled too far foward at a store and hit a curb, which snapped one of the bolts in the bracket causing it to spin around and dump the bushing somewhere along the road. All the other bushings look fairly new. Unfortunately, I have to buy the whole sway bar bushing kit to fix this.
Thanks again for the advice.

That wouldn't suprise me any. Smacking curbs does a huge amount of damage to many cars. I lost count of how many damaged front and rear ends I've seen from this a long time ago. Unfortunately there are no federal or other standards that would prevent such damage.

For some reason a huge segment of the population has no idea where the various areas of their vehicles are. I know many atribute this to women but I've seen plenty of men do it as well. Drive right into a curb or wheel stop. Wham. Scrape. Crunch. Etc.

Even without hitting things, a sway bar can break hardware. There is a huge amount of force transmitted across the vehicle thru that bar when cornering.