Saturday project - Sway bar link replacement

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umbertob

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While off-roading over a rock garden in Big Bear a few days ago, a sharp rock must have jumped up behind my front driver's side wheel, and despite all my underbody armor I managed to bend and break the sway bar link, which is surprisingly vulnerable. Pretty sure it happened somewhere here:

1474793293169-452442119.jpg


Nothing disastrous happens when you bust one of these sticks, but the sway bar is no longer attached on one side when driving as a result (handling is compromised as the car sways too much in turns) and there is this sickening, loud crunching sound coming from the wheel well over road bumps and during sharp compression / extension of the suspensions.

Anyway, I decided to save myself a couple of hundred bucks at my mechanic by replacing the link today at my company's warehouse. I ordered a replacement sway bar link from AB (part # LR014145, about $35, although I expected an OEM part and got an aftermarket link instead, but no big deal) and took a short video of the procedure, hopefully it will be useful to someone else in the future. I sped up the video during the "boring" parts, but the entire process took only about 25 minutes, including jacking up the front end, removing the wheel, replacing the broken link and putting everything back together. Easy.

It helps to have a high lift floor jack (mine is a 3-ton model that can lift up to about 24" high) to jack the entire front end off the floor to relieve the sway bar of tension, a couple of suitable jack stands, and regular tools - metric wrenches and sockets, plus a torque wrench capable of applying 85 ft lb of torque. After jacking up the car and securing the stands, I found that the easiest way to fit the link into both its top receptacle (the upper control arm) and the bottom one (the sway bar) was to use the floor jack on the driver's side LCA to first raise it to slide the bottom end on the sway bar, then slowly lower it until I got the link lined up and through the top hole on the control arm. I was then able to tighten the nuts at both ends to factory specs (85 ft lb.)


Before anyone asks, that's condensation from the A/C dripping on the floor behind the jack. :)
 
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SHS14

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Very thorough just like you oil change video
 

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