How tight do you torque the sway bar end links??

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85T/A 305/QJ work in progress.

 

you tighten them untill the rubber bushing is compressed and expanded to the size of the metal washers

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ICON Motorsports
1st & 3rd
MM Black Diamond 538 F&AM

 

Cool, thats what I did. Due to a lack of $, I put rubber back on, replacing the old blown out poly bushings. Is it normal for the poly type to fall apart after about 100K? I want to get a good replacement schedule going...

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85T/A 305/QJ work in progress.

 

Poly endlink bushings will deteriorate over time, particularly if they were over-tightened when they were installed. Since poly is much more rigid than rubber, even normal suspension movement tries to bend the endlink bolt and will eventually deform the poly.

Unlike rubber endlink bushings, poly doesn't need much preload to start the bar working right away. In fact, less preload is probably better with poly (with a little Locktite to ensure that the nut doesn't loosen up)

Actually, from a cost-no-object suspension function perspective, a split bushing design is not really appropriate regardless of the material, since the bottom of the link follows the control arm arc but the other end moves with the a-r bar in essentially a perpendicular plane. Rubber and poly are only low cost approximations of rod-ended links.

Pep Boys usually has a variety of poly endlink kits in stock for not that much $.

Norm

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1979 Malibu w/some cornering tweaks and a few other interesting things