Sway bar endlinks: How tight?

[pepehuertars]

My factory front endlinks and rubber mounts where kind of loose, so I opted to change both. They produce some rattling when decreasing speed, breaking, etc, and I felt a clunk when passing over bumps, followed by an old mattress / old chair kind of noise.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000IYIT24/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000C57YYS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So the chair noise was coming from the factory rubber frame mounts and now it's gone (brand new moog mounts) and went for a OEM Motorcraft "new design" endlinks. The stock ones had the black hard plastic cover, the new ones have a metal sleeve, red poly or rubber bushings, don't know.

The instructions said to tight the links up to the point where the rubber bushings expand to the diameter of the washers, then turn back 1/4 turn. Followed that instruction and now I have kind of the same rattle, more banging clunking on the suspension and a deviation to the right, with some a oversteer feel. The bottom bushings seems to expand more that the top ones, but all they seem correctly fitted on the sitting points.

So I tighten the endlinks a bit more, but they thing keeps acting like crap. The control of the car changes, less over/understeer more or less clunk, and rattle after some time.

To replace and tight them, I rested the wheels on the surface without the jack, I don't know if I should be doing it with the control arm jacked.

It's a 96 ex Sport btw.

 

[shucker1]

I usually tighten them up till the bushing is about the same size as the washer and leave them alone.

If you still have the noise you may start looking for a bad ball joint or bad control arm bushings?

 

[pepehuertars]

I usually tighten them up till the bushing is about the same size as the washer and leave them alone.

If you still have the noise you may start looking for a bad ball joint or bad control arm bushings?

Lifting the car and moving the wheels 9 to 3 and 6 to 12 doesn't make any particular noise, but I'm a noob, maybe I'm doing it wrong

 

[shucker1]

You have to get the weight off of the ball joints by supporting from the lower control arm with a jack or jack stand.

Once done grab the wheel top and bottom and try to rock it in and out.

Or once supported put a 2" X 4" under the tire and try to lift.

Any worn ball joints will move where the ball meets the socket.

The key is to get the load off of the ball joints.

 

[pepehuertars]

You have to get the weight off of the ball joints by supporting from the lower control arm with a jack or jack stand.

Once done grab the wheel top and bottom and try to rock it in and out.

Or once supported put a 2" X 4" under the tire and try to lift.

Any worn ball joints will move where the ball meets the socket.

The key is to get the load off of the ball joints.

Yes, the last time I checked was jacking the control arm. I will check them again this weekend.

About the endlinks, when tighten them does the control arm must be supported by the jack also?

 

[shucker1]

About the endlinks, when tighten them does the control arm must be supported by the jack also?

As long as both control arms have equal load on them. (I.E. Both on the ground or both on jack stands)

This way you eliminate any torque on the bar fooling you.

 

[masospaghetti]

The Moog replacement links I got were very explicit to have the vehicle at curb height before tightening up the links.

If you continue to have issues I would highly recommend their new design links with the "barrel nut", you tighten it until there are two threads showing so it's easy to do.

 

[pepehuertars]

The Moog replacement links I got were very explicit to have the vehicle at curb height before tightening up the links.

If you continue to have issues I would highly recommend their new design links with the "barrel nut", you tighten it until there are two threads showing so it's easy to do.

Do you have a link to check em out?

 

[shucker1]

If you continue to have issues I would highly recommend their new design links with the "barrel nut", you tighten it until there are two threads showing so it's easy to do.

Still like my Prothane Poly stuff.

Less roll in the corners.

Doing the rest of the truck in Polyurethane too.

Yeah, It will ride like a brick but the wife will not want to drive it so there is some logic here.

Chris

 

[swshawaii]

Do you have a link to check em out?

moog-k700542 | Front Sway Bar End Link Kit | Dodge Ram 1500 1994-2001

http://fme-cat.com/livedocs/MOOG_PS_Bulletin_213006_Sway_Bar_Link_ENG-R.pdf

 

[pepehuertars]

Still like my Prothane Poly stuff.

Less roll in the corners.

Doing the rest of the truck in Polyurethane too.

Yeah, It will ride like a brick but the wife will not want to drive it so there is some logic here.

Chris

I'm going for the poly prothane in the rear swaybar... It's a pain in the... To press out the old rubber bushings tho

moog-k700542 | Front Sway Bar End Link Kit | Dodge Ram 1500 1994-2001

http://fme-cat.com/livedocs/MOOG_PS_Bulletin_213006_Sway_Bar_Link_ENG-R.pdf

Thank you very much. It makes sense from the design pov... I don't get why ford and the rest put a bolt inside a lose metal sleeve as a suspension part! Grit and water will eat em.

 

[swshawaii]

Two polyurethane rear sway bar kit options. Appear the same?
4.5153 | Rear Sway Bar-Endlink Bushings - 19 mm | Ford Explorer
61132 | Rear Sway Bar-Endlink Bushings - 19.30 mm | Explorer

How-To Burn out Suspension Bushings: The Right Way - Suspension.com

 

[J_C]

Has anyone bought the Moog front link set since my topic that showed they had changed the design of the bushings? If so are they still shipping this as new stock?

Moog PS End Link Bushings Downgraded?

I still like swshawaii's solution to use the larger diameter bolt kit and the oversized Energy Suspension bushings trimmed down to fit:

Sway Bar Links

"So far" I have not had any complaints with my redesigned Moog PS but I still keep wondering if one day I'll have them fall off since the thermoplastic doesn't really compress much compared to polyurethane so there is very little friction on the nuts... IMO they should have used castellated nuts if going with this redesign, or at least lock nuts.

I may have gone the wrong route here. Last end links I had were rusted on and needed an angle grinder (or saw, etc) to remove, but grinding them off really wasn't hard to do. I could have welded or threadlocked the nut on then if it wouldn't come off later, just use a grinder again.

 

[J_C]

The rear ES swaybar link kit 4.5153 just dropped in price on Amazon, is now $18... but being Amazon, hard to say how long till it goes back up to $22-something.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000CN79HW

EDIT: It is now $16, probably the cheapest it will ever be.

 

[pepehuertars]

Two polyurethane rear sway bar kit options. Appear the same?
4.5153 | Rear Sway Bar-Endlink Bushings - 19 mm | Ford Explorer
61132 | Rear Sway Bar-Endlink Bushings - 19.30 mm | Explorer

How-To Burn out Suspension Bushings: The Right Way - Suspension.com

I did the rear sway bar end links on Saturday. Since I was just changing the bushings with a prothane poly kit, the challenge was to remove the old bushings keeping the OE hardware intact. Found quite a clever way described in this video using a gear puller -without burning them-:

How to remove rubber bushings without a press or burning - suspension episode 5

 

[shucker1]

Interesting.

Have you run it yet?

Hows it feel?

 

[pepehuertars]

Interesting.

Have you run it yet?

Hows it feel?

Well, the original ones were shot, so putting a piece of cardboard will be better than keeping them.

The new ones were really easy to install. The kit comes with 2 half for each bushing. It's like playing with Lego. The difficult part was extracting the old bushings with the gear puller, but it worked ok.

Driving now seems more stable, can't feel a difference in stiffness, I do have way less vibration and road sound in the cabin. Still need to test it in bumpy and dirty roads, since the truck had problems keeping the tail straight in those situations with the old bushing kit.

 

[J_C]

^ That could also be the leaf spring bushings and your axle dampener (shock), and a bit of the nature of these vehicles, especially with a shorter wheelbase Sport... or did the Sports omit the axle dampener??

 

[masospaghetti]

Has anyone bought the Moog front link set since my topic that showed they had changed the design of the bushings? If so are they still shipping this as new stock?

Moog PS End Link Bushings Downgraded?

I still like swshawaii's solution to use the larger diameter bolt kit and the oversized Energy Suspension bushings trimmed down to fit:

Sway Bar Links

"So far" I have not had any complaints with my redesigned Moog PS but I still keep wondering if one day I'll have them fall off since the thermoplastic doesn't really compress much compared to polyurethane so there is very little friction on the nuts... IMO they should have used castellated nuts if going with this redesign, or at least lock nuts.

I may have gone the wrong route here. Last end links I had were rusted on and needed an angle grinder (or saw, etc) to remove, but grinding them off really wasn't hard to do. I could have welded or threadlocked the nut on then if it wouldn't come off later, just use a grinder again.

This is interesting, didn't really pay attention to the fact they aren't really poly anymore. I did notice they are now made in China. Seems to be the latest victim in cost cutting, hopefully they don't fall off.

 

[J_C]

^ It's a bit funny that they decided that was the right cost cutting measure to take instead of leaving the bushings alone and moving to a standard metal tube for the spacer instead of their anodized aluminum hex-tube design. I guess they think looks trump functionality, except that grease stained white thermoplastic bushing I pictured with all the molding flash hanging off too, hardly looks good.

Guess that's the direction the world is headed, next they'll integrate a bluetooth module to send a message to our phone that it has failed, instead of fixing it so that is less likely.