Sway Bar Link Bushing Removal?

[My S1]

Does anyone have a klever technique for removing/replacing the sway bar drop link bushings; short of cutting the sway bar in half and re-welding?

[dakazman]

 Removal: grind down the sway bar and move the droplink to the end. you can now drill out the rubber of fire up a propane torch and burn it out.
  replace: spray on some silicone and pull bushing in using a long threaded bolt, long enough to go completely thru both the link and the rubber bush with large washers on both ends and tighten nut to pull it in.
 heat up bushing with a heat gun, spray silicone into the hole in bushing and some on sway bar, walk it onto the flat easily, without tearing. the key is to have the sway bar ground down to get rid of the surface rust. brush on some muriatic acid to eat it off rust and wash off with water, afterwards clean and paint the do the bushings.
Dakazman

[314159td]

And on that note...has anybody found the upper sway bar bushing? It seems to be crimped in and when I was ordering them late last year nobody seemed to sell them/have stock. Was intending to cast my own in situ.

[gideon]

And on that note...has anybody found the upper sway bar bushing?

It's not available as a separate part.  The drop link comes with the upper bushing.  I suppose you could say that you get a free drop link with every upper bushing purchased . SJS website lists the drop link, but of course doesn't tell you if it's in stock or not.

https://www.sjsportscars.com/parts-and-accessories/X054C0005Z.htm

The upper bushings on my 50 something year old drop links were still flexible so I just left them in.

[gideon]

On the bushing removal, you have to get the bushing out of the drop link before you get the bushing off the bar.  Use plenty of lubrication and some kind of jury rigged contraption to push the bushing through the drop link end.   I did the assembly process recently and I don't remember exactly how it went, but I think it involved a vice, a pair of nylon soft jaws and a ratching bar clamp.  Getting the bushing over the end of the bar was a bit more challenging and also involved a rubber mallet.   Think of it as a rehearsal for the assembly process

[gideon]

Now I remember, the hardest part was getting the new rubber bushing onto the end of bar.  What I did was to make a slot in a scrap of wood the right size and shape to accept the end of the bar.  I could then use the block of wood and a rubber mallet to force the bushing far enough onto the bar that it could be pushed the rest of the way by hand. 

[My S1]

Thank you for the klever tips.  I'll struggle with getting the bushings on after I powdercoat the bar.  Just another one of those crazy and annoying processes. 

After some wrestling I discovered that the best way to install the sway bar and drop links is to first hang the links on the wishbone studs then jack up the uprights et al to driving height THEN attach the sway bar to the shocks.  When the car is jacked up and the whole assembly is dangling, the sway bar is compressed laterally by 1-1/2" !  So at the center of the sway bar, it bends up 3mm and forward 8mm making it impossible to force the ends onto the shock studs.

[cazman]

You might find this harsh, but I whacked the bushing end to make it oval and it slipped off past the flat. The when it was back on, I whacked it again into a circle. 

[jbcollier]

I don't remember what I did but I didn't do that!

;-)

[cazman]

LOL, yes I am sure.

I actually was going to make a new end link, so I did not care what happened. I learned that that metal was very soft.

[dakazman]