Bent sway bar link

My passenger side sway bar link is bent. Super bent.

How imperative is it that I fix this ASAP? I need to do a lot of driving tomorrow, and I’m debating trying to change it this evening. My concern is that I get part of the way through, find out a bolt is seized, and am unable to drive the truck tomorrow morning because the sway bar is hanging half-off, putting my CB boot in harms way.

I have spare links, and just got an impact driver, and a heat gun. I don’t have a torch or grinder in case these bolts are super stuck and the above tools don’t work. I’ve been hitting the bolts with liquid wrench for the past couple of days in preparation.

Should I attempt the fix today? Or wait until I’ve finished my important errands (4-6 hrs of driving) tomorrow?

 

Take it off if you have a spare link it will come with the bolts so even if you need to cut off the nut it won't matter. No matter what the sway bar is a safety feature and helps keep control of the vehicle. But also what happened that caused it to bend like that?

 

I took my sway bar off. I can't tell a difference in drive handling except off road (which is better)

 

This is a very simple fix. You should be able to complete it in less time than it took to create this thread.
Does your truck have a history of seized bolts or something?

 

channel locks/vise grips and an impact is what i use. bust it right off. my truck lives in the rust belt. if youre worried about body roll, just slap in a new one from the parts store. ( use some anti-seize ) if you dont care about it and wana be off road boi then just take off the whole thing.( whole sway bar from both sides) ive taken mine off and on many times. i drive on the street, so i keep it hooked up.

 

You might be able to get away with taking a cutoff wheel and cutting the link if they don't come off easy. Not a good solution but it will get you on the road for the day or two. Till you have time to fix it.
I'd think it would start pulling funky on hard braking.

 

Yeah the bolts were definitely seized up enough that I couldn’t do it by hand. Haven’t tried the impact wrench yet.

My plan is to do the top bolts on each side first. That way, if I can’t get the lower bolts off, I can just try to remove the whole swag bar for now.


My concern here pretty much based on an older thread here where a guy thought it’d be a quick job to take off his sway bar, and then ended up nearly missing a camping trip with his kid because he ran into issues! I want to learn from that dude’s mistakes haha.

 

There really isn't a way for this job to go wrong to where you will have to miss anything. Like above, worst case you cut off the links if you can't unbolt them. This really will only take you 20 mins to do. And half that time is getting the truck in the air and the tire off.

 

lift truck,
take tires off,
take skid plate off (iirc),
latch onto the ball side of the link with vise grips (try and avoid cutting up the boot),
hit the other side with the impact (17MM?) if it is tough to unscrew go forward and back a few times maybe clean the threads with some brakleen periodically,
then take off the 4 bolts holding the sway bar, dont drop it on your noggin.
you can probably skip the skid plate and the 4 bolts on the sway bar if you want to put a new link on right away.
lube up the link male dingus with some antiseize and put it back together. shouldnt even need the vise grip when tightening.
if youre paranoid, re-check bolts later on after driving.
you may snap the skid plate bolts. mine were when i bought my truck, but were fixed with the frame recall.

oh! perfect time for a tire rotation!!

 

Well I got them successfully switched out with some new and beefier links. The impact driver did the trick!

I got all of the bolts as right as I could by hand. Hoping that’s good enough....my torque wrench was too long to maneuver in there.

Now that I’m done, I found that the packaging included two washers. How big of a deal is it if I didn’t use those?

 

that is why people usually only use torque wrenches for things like head bolts

you could go back and put the washers

 

Time to remove it and be done. I made a gate hinge out of my swaybar. It will be around 100 years from now. That's all their good for.

 

ah yes
the good old sway bar delete trick, on regular suspension
to result in compromised handling in which the truck becomes slow as fuck in corners, unstable, and wallows around

some people have put forth effort to develop quick disconnect end links
or engineers on newer vehicle nowadays even inventing electronically controlled ones to switch between on an off road

but why do that
when you can just yank the whole thing off and fuck up your truck

maybe a higher end damper and spring combo such as King can perform well enough to not care if there's a bar
for most people not on King, but on something cheaper like OME, Bilstein 4600, 5100, OEM, etc. - removal is noticeable

 

I considered just deleting the sway bar. I don’t have a daily commute (work from home) and the truck is on the trail probably 50% of the time that I’m driving it.

But when I’m on the trail, and end up in a really off camber position....man that’s my least favorite part of being off-road. My worst fear is tipping over. It scares the shit out of me, haha. I can’t imagine that a sway bar delete is going to do anything to ease that fear!

 

People THINK it doesn't have any change in the truck handling but it does. It's a mandatory safety feature, like an airbag, and risking the lives of the occupants of a vehicle by removing it is a liability. They can do what they want but it's there for a reason. They also remove the sways and load heavier stuff on the truck like bumpers, winches, RTT's, and other heavy bling and think they are in better control without sways.

 

I have a near 6000 lb. Land Cruiser on 35's with heavy bumpers. There is no way I'd remove sways while on the street. I have quick disconnects for when I rock crawl which I don't need to do on lighter trails. It's irresponsible to drive any heavy vehicle like these without swaybars.

 

still waiting for someone to invent a quick disco for the 2nd gen Taco

 

It’d probably make you feel more planted because your suspension could droop and give you that much more travel/flex. I took mine off and the rides considerably better no way I’d put it back on, thinking about taking it off this regular cab I just bought.

 

There are a lot of words in there that I'm not sure you actually understand the meaning of.

 

Like bling? Yes, brain fart.... should be liability.