Question on rear sway bar bushings.

[cRaZySHO.]

I just went to get my sway bars ready for installation tomorrow. The rear bushings appear to be two different sizes. One is really tight, and the small slit won't close up. And the other one closes, and fits snug, but not too tight. I think I got a mismatched pair. Which way is it supposed to be? Tight or loose?

 

[SHOZ123]

There should be a slight gap before being clamped down. Too much gap really won't hurt but no gap will.

 

[RStalveyARFF]

the only way to tell for sure would be to take a caliper and measure the thickness of the bar at both mounting points. It is very common for the swaybar thickness to reduced at the point where the bushings are.

 

[89 Gary]

I just replaced my 89 26mm bar with the 29mm one. After 270k miles I was getting constant "banging" noise in the rear. Well,we took apart my Koni/Eibach set up yeaterday. I had replaced my old/faulty Koni's with new ones a year ago. I suspected bad Koni's or the top mounts. Well-I have finally found the problem,that being the bar itself had worn down 1mm on one side and 3/4 mm on the other. This is very small (3% and 4 %) but enough to ruin the bushings. I like the "prothane" bushings which came with the bar. They have many grooves in them to hold my teflon grease which I use on all bushings. I simply drilled a hole in the bushing and metal clamp and screwed in a 5/16 grease fitting. FWIW-I have never had a rear strut mount fail in 14 yrs. I always replace them of course when I remove struts for any reason. The front mounts/bearings have failed oftenand 50k miles seems to be the limit. And if any of you are thinking about getting the 29mm bar I will tell you that I'd have to do some serious cornering to get the rear end to become tail happy-what a difference!