First use of radius rod, earliest car?

[jcline]

I have a '67 SS/RS L48, 4speed, 3.55 12 bolt Posi (PI) car with a radius rod which mine is earlier than I see with a quick browse, is early December 1966. My car  is early to mid November.

[GMAD_Van Nuys]

A CRG article pointed out information about a radius rod that were installed by a dealer:

A significant complication to the analysis of the radius rod applications is the rectangular radius rod service retrofit kit. This makes it a bit more difficult for us to be sure if a rectangular bar was factory installed or dealer installed. However, by comparison of the service replacement instructions with the original factory assembly instructions, it appears that there are three clues that should distinguish a service replacement rectangular bar from its factory brother:

    When the service kit was applied to a car with no previous bar, the body bracket was welded to the body, rather than bolted-on as was done at the factory.

    If the axle bracket didn't have holes to mount the stop bracket, the service kit required the bumper stop bracket to be welded to the axle bracket, rather than bolted-on as was done at the factory.

    When the service kit was applied to a car with a pre-existing round bar, the round bar axle brackets were not replaced with the new brackets but remained on the axle and were used as-is. The two bracket types have distincly different shapes.

[bcmiller]

I have a '67 SS/RS L48, 4speed, 3.55 12 bolt Posi (PI) car with a radius rod which mine is earlier than I see with a quick browse, is early December 1966. My car  is early to mid November.

Post up some pics of the axle and floor pan of your car where the mount is located.

[David K]

I'd like to see the codes on the axle tube if ya can post them.

[jcline]

I took this picture back in 2017. I have the car in storage. I was looking to see if I can find a picture of the radius rod, but I don't have one at the moment. I am about too get the car out of storage and I will get more. I was curious about the rear axle and did my best back then to get under the car with my iphone,. I had to scrap years of dirt from the tube. I did notice from the picture that there is a bracket with the head of a bolt and a nut showing and with a weld at the back side of the bracket. That might be part of the radius rod assembly, but not sure. 

[jcline]

Trim Tag

[MO]

From observation it seems that round bars may have been available sometime in Oct/Nov. 66, and square bars were available sometime in Feb/March, 67.

[KurtS]

From observation it seems that round bars may have been available sometime in Oct/Nov. 66, and square bars were available sometime in Feb/March, 67.

The data says otherwise, both the article http://www.camaros.org/radiusrod.shtml and the database agree - mid-December for start of production usage.

[MO]

After reading that, I agree. What I have seen must have been self or dealer installed.