fridayman
Well-Known Member
Yesterday I finally got round to replacing the front drop links and sway bar bushes. I got the poly bush kit and a set of drop links from Milners, as well as a set of longer Terrano drop links off ebay.
Milners drop link top, old toyo middle, and Terrano bottom. Poly bush kit on the left.
I wasn't sure about these particular Terrano drop links. They look a little cheaply made:
And the bottom bolt is quite a bit thinner than the proper LC piece.
And finally I would just like to thank my Halfords flex-head ratchet spanners for making life so much easier - every man should have a set of them.
I didn't want it to move around in the mounting hole, so I decided to use the Milners links with the poly bushes:
The right hand link came out without too much fuss, but the left hand bottom bolt was a bit of a challenge. Lots of heat, WD40 and leverage used in various combinations together with much grunting and swearing had absolutely no impact. I started wondering if brute force and violence was the answer... and fetched the angle grinder.
There was no mention in the full service history that I got with the truck about one of the links being replaced at some point - see pic below:
I suspect that the one that I had to cut off was an original.
On the very right of the first pic you will see a square(ish) flange - none of the replacement links came with this flange so I had to remove it from the old link with some vice-grips.
The replacement link did not have this flange. Whoever had replaced it before had not transferred it onto the new link. I ended up using one of the spare top bush washers (see the first pic, top left below the bushes) instead thinking that it would couldn't hurt and was better than nothing.
Then on to the sway bar bushes. This is what the right hand bush looked like:
Old and new bush for comparison:
The left bush wasn't as bad, but it was also starting to harden and crack.
The new bush fitted and "hand" torqued up - should be 19ft.lbs I think.
The top link nut should be 14ft.lb and the bottom nut 51ft.lb.
Milners drop link top, old toyo middle, and Terrano bottom. Poly bush kit on the left.
I wasn't sure about these particular Terrano drop links. They look a little cheaply made:
And the bottom bolt is quite a bit thinner than the proper LC piece.
And finally I would just like to thank my Halfords flex-head ratchet spanners for making life so much easier - every man should have a set of them.
I didn't want it to move around in the mounting hole, so I decided to use the Milners links with the poly bushes:
The right hand link came out without too much fuss, but the left hand bottom bolt was a bit of a challenge. Lots of heat, WD40 and leverage used in various combinations together with much grunting and swearing had absolutely no impact. I started wondering if brute force and violence was the answer... and fetched the angle grinder.
There was no mention in the full service history that I got with the truck about one of the links being replaced at some point - see pic below:
I suspect that the one that I had to cut off was an original.
On the very right of the first pic you will see a square(ish) flange - none of the replacement links came with this flange so I had to remove it from the old link with some vice-grips.
The replacement link did not have this flange. Whoever had replaced it before had not transferred it onto the new link. I ended up using one of the spare top bush washers (see the first pic, top left below the bushes) instead thinking that it would couldn't hurt and was better than nothing.
Then on to the sway bar bushes. This is what the right hand bush looked like:
Old and new bush for comparison:
The left bush wasn't as bad, but it was also starting to harden and crack.
The new bush fitted and "hand" torqued up - should be 19ft.lbs I think.
The top link nut should be 14ft.lb and the bottom nut 51ft.lb.