For those who have changed their rear sway bar or sway bar end-links, is it easier to have the suspension loaded (e.g. car on ramps), or to have the suspension fully unloaded (e.g. car jacked up and on jack stands)? Sometime in the future I may change my rear endlinks since I had the fronts done last year.
Keep suspension loaded when changing sway bar/sway bar endlinks?
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When I did the front suspension, I put the car up on jack stands, removed the wheel. then used the jack under the rotor to load the suspension. I think you can remove the old part, and install the new part with the bolts loosely installed, then load the suspension before tightening (torqueing) the bolts.
- loosen nuts with wheels off on jack stands, there is no way you can get to them and loosen them doing it at home on jack stands unless you have a full size lift. You might have to loosely load suspension here because the links might get into a twisted position after you loosen the nuts.
- load suspension using hydraulic jack under brake rotor, install link with nut on relatively snug
- put wheel back on, lower car back down onto the ground, now suspension is fully loaded. Sneak a torque wrench under and torque them down fully. This is relative hard for the front ones unless you can drive your front wheels onto pieces of wood. So you can also take wheels off again in a few days after some driving and re-torque, this was what I did.
- load suspension using hydraulic jack under brake rotor, install link with nut on relatively snug
- put wheel back on, lower car back down onto the ground, now suspension is fully loaded. Sneak a torque wrench under and torque them down fully. This is relative hard for the front ones unless you can drive your front wheels onto pieces of wood. So you can also take wheels off again in a few days after some driving and re-torque, this was what I did.
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When replacing any suspension components, the service manual always says to install the bolts loosely, then load the suspension before tightening/torqueing the bolts. I think it has something to do with having everything in the normal on the ground position when the bolts are tightened.
Right, I understand that. My question was why don't people just do the entire removal/installation procedure on ramps, since the suspension is loaded while on ramps? Is it not possible to remove endlinks or swaybars while the suspension is loaded?
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Because in most cases the wheel is in the way, and removing the wheel makes things easier to get to. You don't have to do everything on your back. As far as removing and installing with the suspension loaded, it probably depends on what component you are working on. With sway bar links it may not make much difference, but with something like control arms, you can't remove them with the suspension loaded.
Accessibility issue and the possibility of something something springing out when you loosen a nut or bolt because everything is under stress when suspension is loaded. And quite frankly, I despise ramps and tossed them out because of one overshooting incident in the past.
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The shop manual says that the sway bar needs to be loaded before tightening. There might be a very slight tension difference in the sway bar. I would think any shop would just tighten the bolts on the lift.
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