Front sway bar endlinks

[SeanColin]

I've been told the bushings on mine are a little loose causing a noise I'm hearing. Has anyone replaced them with something like the Steeda ones? Is it even worth it for anything other than looks?

 

[UNBROKEN]

Stick with oem. There’s zero benefit to aftermarket. I’ve been through 2 sets of front aftermarket that flat ass broke and just swapped the 3rd set back to oem because they were starting to make noise.

 

[SeanColin]

Stick with oem. There’s zero benefit to aftermarket. I’ve been through 2 sets of front aftermarket that flat ass broke and just swapped the 3rd set back to oem because they were starting to make noise.

Thanks for the input, I'll go that route.

 

[GearHead_1]

Stick with oem. There’s zero benefit to aftermarket. I’ve been through 2 sets of front aftermarket that flat ass broke and just swapped the 3rd set back to oem because they were starting to make noise.

After market sway bar?

 

[UNBROKEN]

After market sway bar?

I have an aftermarket front bar, yes. I also don’t recommend those. They’re not worth the money or hassle to install.

 

[GearHead_1]

Wonder if the extra stress of that bar is working those ends a bit harder?

 

[UNBROKEN]

Wonder if the extra stress of that bar is working those ends a bit harder?

Nah…the first set broke on a stock bar.

 

[valleyford]

I can’t reinforce enough the sentiment expressed by @UNBROKEN … lesson learned, and almost “the hard way”.

8K miles on the ‘25, maybe 5K since Steeda F & R sway bars and Steeda adjustable end links installed by a speed shop—started to hear LF clunking. Low speed rapid L & R steering indicated LF sway bar endlink. Once jacked up with front wheels removed, I could see the endlinks appeared angled differently, and the LF lower endlink would noticeably clunk when forcefully shaking.

Removed the Steeda front sway bar end links, and it’s almost too easy to see how these just weren’t going to work as observed. Once removed, I observed the following: 1) not adjusted to the same length as each other 2) not adjusted to the length of the Ford OEM endlinks 3) the end of one endlink is clearly over rotated in its adjustment … all of which appears contrary to Steeda installation instructions.

I’ll follow up with the speed shop, but I almost wonder if the design simply has a greater potential of lower or upper endlink balljoint rotational drift leading to accelerated wear if you don’t doublecheck and readjust. Combined with the need to regrease, and no obviously different performance characteristics over OEM, I’m now in camp “OEM swaybar endlinks only”.

Ford OEM front sway bar links & nuts ordered installed and torqued to holy shit 129 ft lbs (awkward to achieve that within the wheel well). Test drive then confirmed my initial diagnosis was correct—no more sway bar end link clunking over uneven terrain or quick L & R steering sway at low speed. I did reuse the aggressive front adjustment holes on the Steeda front sway bar, so basically still getting all of whatever advertised by Steeda suspension performance improvement as before but with a good bit more peace of mind now.

Hope this info helps others.

 

[Cdubya]

The stock end links are pretty durable. I replaced the stock front and rear at 104k mi now and to my surprise, the old stock front and rear end links show no signs of play at all.