My new bars came with some instructions warning installers not to tighten the link-ends too tight.

I put the front bar on and tightened the nuts so about 3/4 inch of the threaded link is exposed above the nut.

I did not hit it with a torque wrench, but my guess is it is about 20 pounds or so??

The ride is good with no squeeking or other noises so far.

Is this correct?

Should the rear bar be the same?

Thanks...

 

My sway bar instructions didnt come with any torque specs. You dont need a torque wrench. tighten the endlinks until the bushings just start to flatten out a little. thats all. I had about an inch of thread out the end of the bolt on my endlink. not sure what brand you have though. it could be different.

 

I beleive the shop manual calls for 15 pds

 

take a picture, i can tell you if they are too tight or too loose or just right

 

X2

 

Hello, just finished up my kit for the sway bar bushings. I was also wondering the torque for the thread. I'll check it will 15lbs of torque is correct to see if its close. But I can feel the difference. I took off the 12 year old sway bar bushings and wow, they were plastic. The car rides like a dream now.

 

I tightened mine to 20 ft/lbs and they feel just right. As noted above, this can be done by feel and an eyeball test....just make sure they're not overly tight.

 

Yeah don't do what I did the first time around - I cranked them and the rubber split like 3 months later

 

There is no official "torque spec" on them. As stated above, just tighten both sides equally until the bushings begin to compress. Overtighteneing can cause binding and premature bushing failure on the endlinks

 

Found in a search. I loaded the suspension to tighten my sway bar end links. When I let them down, I can still spin the nut with the socket and wrench set up. I tightened until I started to see the bushings compress and then quit. Is this normal? I'm still going to proceed with building up my suspension as I can always tighten this when I get the wheels on and take it off of the jack stands. I'm just curious if this is normal.

 

Normal.

 

+1, this

 

Just FYI the 2000 shop manual says this:

Front end links: 17 ft lbs
Rear end links: 17 ft lbs
Front bushing clamp bolts: 41 ft lbs
Rear bushing clamp nuts: 18 ft lbs

ETA: with the end links it's as they said though. You can't just go by the torque since often the wrench will not see that much tension before you need to stop. This happened during my install. I set it to 17 but it never clicked before I noticed that the bushings were compressing too much and I needed to stop tightening.