asloudasitgets

hello, i had some comtech sways installed on my tls about 1.5 years ago and well the numb nuts that installed the sways overtightned the bolts way to much. The rear bushings are fine but the fronts are messed up. i mean the bushings look like they exploded, now everytime i go over bumps i get this horendous noise comming from my car. I know most likely its the bushings, even the tefphlon tape is tearing off inside the bushing.

well my question is how do you replace the bushings for the front sway bar? Do you just unbolt the 2 bolts and heres the important question will the sway barpull down without having to unbolt the whole bar? cause in order to replace the bushing the bar needs to pulled down. If you installed your sways you prob. know what im talking about. Or does the whole bar need to be uninstalled in order to replace the bushings?

thanks

acutee

You must raise the car up evenly so that there will be no pressure on the sway.

I guess his question is when raising up the front of the car evenly, will there be any pressure on the swaybar? If there is pressure on the swaybar, definitely you don't want to remove the bushings; removing one could damage the other if there is pressure on the bar. Someone could have a better answer...

asloudasitgets

if i had to lift the front end will it be ok just to put 2 jack stands on the 2 front lift points? Since the front will be in the air and the back will be sitting on the floor?

are you sure 100%that i must life the car in order to get the front bushings off?

01tl4tl

On the rears when doing the shocks with the car on jackstands- the sway bar bushing mount was easily removed.
The key is the weight is normal level, not jacked up on one side of the car

Get greasable bushings, Suspension Techniques has them- avail at parts stores
I dont know who floated the whole Teflon Tape idea but if you understand whats happening to the bar in corners- synthetic grease is the way to go-- as the parts do actually move-
tape is for sealing fluids at thread joints, and even then- use 1.5 wraps of tape around the threads, not several as some are fond of doing- making the threads disappear from view is not good

You can use teflon tape in a non rotating motion area to quiet something down-limit contact between parts.

AMGala

iTrader: (4)

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/184466/6

Read through that, it may help.

01tl4tl

It depends on how skinny/flat you are as a body now-
thats pretty low clearance to be turning a ratchet and working easily
Yes you can use the jack point for the stands or the frame rail is right there and a more secure option.

Getting crushed by the falling car isnt the bad part- its when they remove the weight from you that bad things happen to your internals.
And the TV news crew always wants to show up for this type of story!!

asloudasitgets

thanks amgala, in his write up he says remeber to unbolt the brackets last , cause the bar falls down. So it will be difficult to hold the bar up while trying to unbolt the endliks using a racket and a allen wrench at the sametime. Answers all my questions, does the bar fall down if you were to unbolt the bar.

AMGala

iTrader: (4)

You're welcome! I've changed my rear sway bar so I know the situation in the back, but I haven't touched my front one. Glad you found your answer.

asloudasitgets

now i cant even get my bracket bolts off, cause the idiot that did the install seems to have used a air gun to tighten the bolts. I cant even get them move at all. now im gonna have to go to a shop just to get bushings installed. jesus.

AMGala

iTrader: (4)

Did you spray the bolts with WD-40 or PB Blaster?

Edward'TLS

Comptech retains the front rubber bushings for a reason. Our extremely front heavy FWD TL has a very strong tendency to understeer right out from the factory. In terms of improving the handling of the car, you want to stiffen up the rear more than the front, in order to induce more oversteer (or to reduce the existing understeer).

Since both front and rear Comptech sways are already stiffer than the OEM ones, Comptech stiffen up the rear even more by using hard poluerethane bushings. It's all calculated exactly by Comptech. However, if you are to replace the front rubber bushing with hard poly ones, you'll inevitably add more understeering back into the car thereby defecting the original purpose of using aftermarket sways to reduce understeer.

But if you have adjustable shocks, that's a different story. With adjustable shocks, you can dial in as much oversteering as you want by varying the setting of the front shocks versus the rear shocks. So with adjustable shocks, if you want to use poly bushings on the front sways and still want to retain the improved handling dynamic provided by the Comptech (or other brands) sways, you need to either :

(1) dial down the stiffness of the front shocks while keeping the rears unchanged, or
(2) if you don't mind the ride being extra rough, dial up the rear stiffness while keeping the fronts unchanged.