Recently I discovered that the driver side sway bar endlink on my rear sway bar was completely missing. I discovered this because every time I took a right turn somewhat hard I would hear a loud banging noise from the back of my car. Took a look under the car and noticed the bar was just hanging there, not connected to the car at all on that side.

I've never had to replace anything to do with the sway bars so I'm clueless as to what I need. I compared the other side of the sway bar to the one I am referring to, and figured that the endlink is what I need to replace.

So here's the questions:

1. How do I determine which sway bar end link I need for my car? There seems to be about 50 of the Energy Suspension end links at AutoZone and they all look the same to me, except the PN is different on all of them.

2. Will I need to replace the bushing or is this a completely different part altogether?

3. What kind of tools will I need?

4. How hard is this to do?

5. Is there any way to measure sway bars without calipers? I used an adjustable wrench to measure it once and it measured 21mm, but I'm not sure if that is entirely accurate.

Thanks for the help.

 

1) ask the guy at the counter. you can bring the old one (off the other side) in with you to compare if needed.
2) don't need to replace the bushings but you may want to depending on their condition. it's the rubber (or poly) piece between the bar and the bracket that attaches the bar to the axle/rear end. the end link kit will include the four bushings for each endlink.
3) open end wrench and deep well socket (9/16-1/2?) or two wrenches (one can be your adjustable), one to hold the endlink bolt while loosening the nut with the other.
4) 2 on a scale of 1 to 10. opening fuel door being a 1.
5) AZ counter guy can loan you a pair of calipers.

 

The complete Energy Suspension end link kit for front or rear is 9.8117(ending in "R" means red bushing,ending in "B" means black bushings).Main thing on the rear is to jack the car up evenly or you'll preload the sway bar and it makes it a pain to remove the nuts from the bolts(personal exp and I should have known better).

 

When you are replacing the enlinks it is easier to just take a saws-all through the middle of it. It sure beats wrenching off a 14+ old bolt.

Kevin

 

The length of the bolt as well as how much it is threaded is specific to the ride height. You can order them but you know I would actually goto the junkyard and get the rear endlink bolts off a parts car since the bolts themselves are not a wear itme. It'll be cheaper and guarantee right part for stock ride height. Then I would replace all the bushings regardless on both sides w/ good stuff. Its really easyand its cheap. When tightening them you need a wrench and a ratchet w/ socket or two ratchets w/ two sockets (one long socket). Make sure the suspension is loaded and do not overtighten the top bolt, this will cause it to bind. Tighten it until there is contact, you do not need to compress the bushings. It would go on like this, put one stop ring on the stud, then one bushing, then put it up through the body mount, then another bushing and another stop ring, then the tube spacer then repeat again through the swaybar mount. Basically there is a bushing on each end of each mounting point (body and swaybar) with stop rings on each end to keep them in place and a tube spacer in the middle.