HOW TO: Protege 5 Strut and Sway Bar install

under the car, mechanic showed me (among other suspension woes) the amount of free play in the anti-sway bar by having me grab the bar near the endlink and rattling it by hand. I have to say, I used little to no effort to move the sway bar up-and-down. it cause a loud rattle noise as i shook the sway bar. he told me this is a result of faulty endlinks.

2nd opinion time. I installed the endlinks around 2011/2012 memory failing me. did I just not torque them enough? could they fail in 2 years? perhaps from pothole damage? I wont lie, there are a few times I thought my car would shatter after hitting several potholes, but I saw no damage on the rim of the wheels, so I thought I was safe. or is this more a bushing failure?
 
Step 2: undo carriage Bolts
StrutSwayIn52.jpg


Step 2.5: troubleshooting crossmember bolts,

if the nut inside the cross member magically unwelds it will look like this
StrutSwayIn53.jpg

StrutSwayIn56.jpg

StrutSwayIn57.jpg


The bolt will spin freely and will never come out no matter how fast you spin your impact gun
To separate the bolt you will need a wrench with a shallow 17mm socket, beside the bolt you will see a larger rectangular opening,
Place the wrench with 17mm socket inside (ensure you set your wrench to reverse to loosen), you may not need to hold it there as there is not very much room inside the cross member and the wrench will hit one of the sides, you can now unscrew the bolt, I do not recommend using an impact gun, just use your breaker bar and go slow so the wrench doesnt pop out.
StrutSwayIn52.jpg

What did you do since the nut inside the crossmember "unwelded"? Same happened to mine and the bolt never goes fully bolts in. Did you have it re welded?
 
Concerning the center top nut of the strut, is there a factory amount of threads it should go down or torque for it? I know every shock is different, but I ordered standard sized ones.
 
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