Hey, everyone! I put in some new sway bar linkages last weekend while I had the rear suspension disassembled to install a new fuel sender unit, and something looked wrong.

I'll start with some background. I was working on my 1991 RS 5.0L TBI. I decided to put in some new sway bar linkages/bushings because it's software, and the originals are just so old. I mean, they're cheap, and I was working in the area anyway.

I did use the Advance Auto house brand, which were pretty cheap.

So I was putting everything back together, and torquing the nut on the driver side linkage. Haynes specifies 16 ft-lbs for the "stabilizer link-to-bar". I was pretty sure that was the torque I should be using, but the nut just kept on going and going and going. I started to see a little bit of discoloration in the bushings. It's visible in the pics, it's just a few vertical white lines.

So I just backed it off to what looked more reasonable and left it at that.

I suppose it could be that my torque wrench is inaccurate, but that's pretty wildly inaccurate. I mean, it looked like it was damaging the parts.

Or maybe I interpreted the Haynes words wrong. Or maybe the part is just crap.

I want to put my car together right, so if you have any input, let me know. Thanks!

 

Are the nuts self-locking? If so just tighten till the bushings start to compress a little and your done.

 

^^^This...

You don't "torque" those. You just tighten them until the rubber part is just slightly larger than the washers. You can tighten em a little more, or less, to tune them a bit. The ones in your pic look well within the range; maybe a hair to the tight side, but plenty OK.

 

You Get The Right Torque By Tightening The Nut Down To The End Of The Threads On The Bolt,That's Why The Bolt Threads Are So Short,You Can't Over Tighten Them.

 

This is true.

 

I don't know where people got this idea that you should tighten till the rubber just starts bulging or something. These things are designed for the nut to be tightened against the unthreaded shoulder to the torque spec, that compresses the bushings and takes any play out of that assembly. It's also why shortening the spacers on them doesn't work, then you end up changing the preload on the bushings and the sway bar ends up not working as well as designed.

 

My 92 shop manual shows 13-ft lbs for torque.

Keep in mind that these specs are for the stock rubber or 1LE nylon material.

 

Works fine for STOCK, or for EXACT REPLACEMENT, ones.

Not so much for "universal" ones such as ES or Prothane or what have you, since the parts on different cars are all manner of different sizes.

Which is why they come with LOCKNUTS; if all you had to do was tighten em against the shoulder, you wouldn't need that.

Best way is ALWAYS to tighten em until the elastic material deforms to the size of the washers.

 

That only works for stock replacements. Any aftermarket set will not be indexed the same, so bottoming out the threads is well beyond compressing the bushings, so much to the point of damaging them

 

Wrong thread, please delete this post.