Gen II V8 Sport - replaced front sway bar bushing

Deaconblue

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I spent a rainy Saturday in the garage with my ’04 V8 Sport replacing the front sway bar mount bushings and link ends. The car maybe 11 years old but it only has 41K miles. The squeaking began around 35K miles and has only gotten worst. You just have to love Ford and one of their "better ideas" concerning this non-serviceable, life of the vehicle front sway bar mount bushing design.

The Sport models have a 30mm front sway bar. I replaced the mount bushings and brackets with Energy Suspension #9.5171G (black) kit for a 1-3/16” bar, which is almost exactly 30mm. I also used a pair of 1-3/16” sized 2-pcs split collar shaft clamps on the sway bar to eliminate any side to side movement of the sway bar. I ordered those split collar clamps from McMaster-Carr. They have them in aluminum, zinc plated steel and stainless steel. Since I drive the car year round, I went with the 303 grade stainless units. If you have not done so already, replace the factory front sway bar link ends with the grease able MOOG #K80261 units.

If you have worked on suspensions before, replacing say; struts, shocks and/or springs, then you can handle this job. Do you need a lift? No, but be prepared to be lying on your back for a while and make sure you wear eye protection. Do you need to lower, drop or remove the sub frame or even remove the sway bar from the car to get the job done? Do you need to remove the front shock/spring assemblies? Do you need to remove the lower front control arm or front knuckle/hubs? No, no and no, but make sure you block out about 8-10 hrs to get the job done the long way. Do you need air tools and a cutting wheel? No, you can do it with a Dremel, but make sure its in good working order and that you buy two (2) packs of HD cutting wheels. After you wear down/break each cutting wheel, let the Dremel cool off or you will end up burning out the Dremel’s motor winds/bushings. Also keep in mind that those Dremel cutting wheels do not like cutting through the factory rubber bushings.

Here are a few other notes to keep in mind.

Make sure the steering wheel is centered and the front wheels are pointing straight ahead.

Jack up and support the front end. Remove the front wheel/tires. Remove the forward half of the inner fender liners and all the splash guards along with the lower center panel that seals the area from the lower front edge of the bumper to the front of the sub-frame. Take some pictures of these before removal or have shop manual handle so you know the orientation of these splash guards to make re-installation a lot easier.

Freeze Off works better than PB Blaster.

Remove the sway bar link ends first. If the treads are badly rusted and the bolts will not come all the way off, you may need to cut them off.

Use anti-seize on the treads of all the fasteners when reinstalling everything. It makes removal the next time so much easier.

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Take out all four mounting bracket bolts so that the sway bar can now move side to side a couple inches. You can get at the driver’s side forward mounting bracket bolt very easily from above, after you remove the air intake tubing between the air box and throttle body. You just need a couple long extensions and a swivel.

Remove the passenger side mount bracket and bushing from the sway bar first. There is more room on that side, you will learn a few tricks and now there is more movement side to side and a small amount of rotational movement of the bar so that working on the very cramped driver’s side mounting bracket is a bit easier. Small sections of 2x4 can be used help to support the sway bar ends on the lower control arms, once you get the bar into position to start working with the Dremel.

You need to make two cuts through each of the steel mounting bracket, wide enough apart so that you can pry the remaining portion of the bracket and bushing off the sway bar. Keep in mind that the Dremel cutting wheels do like cutting through the factory rubber bushings. Again do not over heat the Dremel. Once the section of the steel mounting bracket is removed, you will need to cut out the corresponding section of the rubber bushing using a utility knife.

Loosely install the grease zerks into the MOOG sway bar link ends. Be careful not to over torque them - you can easily strip the pipe threads. Loosely install the new link ends to both the sway bar and the knuckles/hub, before installing the new sway bar mount bushings and brackets. They are much easier to install at this time and they will help hold the sway bar in place.

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Clean the area of the sway bar where the mounting bushings are located of any debris, flaking paint or rust. Use the clear marine grade grease that comes with the mount bushing kit to pre-lube the inside of the poly bushings and position them on the sway bar. Install the washers that came with the mount bushing kit under the new mounting brackets, between them and the frame mounting pads. Doing this keeps the mounting brackets from over compressing the new poly bushings. Yes I know that this isn’t easy, just be patient. With both mounting bracket bolts started, push the new mounting brackets as far forward in their slotted holes as possible before snugging the bolts down. You will need this small extra amount of distance to gain a bit of extra clearance to keep the upper grease zerks on the MOOG sway bar link ends from contacting the body of the front shocks.

With the sway bar mount bushings bolts torqued down, center the sway bar side to side. Do this by comparing the location/position of the sway bar link ends to a fixed point on the knuckles/hubs. With the sway bar centered side to side, install the split shaft collars on the sway bar. Snug them up against the inside of the sway bar bushings. Spin them around so that you can get a hex wrench on both bolts before torquing those hex head cap screws down.

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Tighten up the MOOG sway bar link ends. Tighten up the grease Zerks making sure that they are pointed in an appropriate direction so that you can get your grease gun on them. Make sure to grease the MOOG link ends. It is fairly easy to grease both the passenger and driver side sway bar mount bushing from above with the air intake tubing out of the way, but you will need a long extension hose on your grease gun and maybe a 90 degree end fitting on the hose.

Reinstall the fender liners and splash guards. Reinstall the air box tubing. Reinstall the wheels/tires and lower the car. Take the car out on a test drive and enjoy the nice quite ride and slightly shaper handling with slightly less body roll that the poly bushings provide. Make sure to grease the sway bar mount bushings and MOOG sway bar link ends at least every other time you change the engine oil or at least once a year.

Yes I know my 11 year old factory Sport shocks are rusty, but they are just fine with only 41K miles on them.

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Excellent write up on this. I have the bushings and end links sitting in my garage, been there for some time now. I'm glad I have this thread for reference when I tackle the job. Good engineering on the shaft clamps!!

Thanks again for the write up, many will appreciate this.
 
When I replaced the bushings with ES pieces back about 2008 I simply put a pair of worm-drive hose clamps on the bar to keep it from working side-to-side. (I did use the better quality that's all SS.

KS
 

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