Thanks for the input Team. I have already purchased the racingbeat endlinks. It comes with the drillbit and drill bushing so it shouldn't be tool big a deal to drill out the holes. I figured the stockers would be fine but I bought them in case I ran in to what I'm running into now with the destructive removal problem. If the endlinks had come off fine I probably would have re-used them but now that the bottom one is all buggered up I'm going to switch them.

I will definitely be using antisieze on these bolts!! I think they employ a gorilla at the factory to torque down all the bolts on the suspension.

 

Are the nut splitters the same as the Craftsman Bolt-outs?

Those work wonders on nuts that are rounded out.

Instead of anti-seize use loctite blue. This will prevent the threads from corroding and also prevent them from loosening up. The blue is non-permanent so the holding power is not extreme.

I had a bolt come out from rear caliper mounting bracket because of anti-seize,and on a critical component I wouldn't risk it again.

 

it didn't come out due to antisieze, it came out because you didn't torque it properly, if at all ...

been using it for 30+ years, only time anything ever came loose is because I f'd up ...

 

Nice DIY!!! Good work man!

 

VICTORY IS OURS!!

Well kristopher_d and I got the swaybars and the shocks done. We ended up having to straigh drill out the bolt for the front passenger side endlink from the control arm. It came out though and the new ones went in. On the rear endlinks we had to heat up the nuts with a plumbers torch. It worked fine though. Thanks for the help and suggestions everyone!

The shocks went in without drama. Now the car corners incredibly! I put the konis on 25% (180) from full soft in the rear and 50% (360) in the front. It perfect and smooth on the street. Man they really damp out the rebound quickly and are still comfortable.


Special thanks to kristopher_d for coming over and spending his weekend wrenching on my car. I think the only thing worse than wrenching on your own car all weekend is someone elses!

 

To buttress the point Team was making; threaded bolts/nuts/screws don't hold things together due to thread interface. They hold things together due to stretching of the bolt or screw as it it torqued. Therefore, use of anti-seize won't cause backing out. Insufficient stretching will.

 

As a followup. I ended up breaking my rear passenger side endlink on my test drive. When I heated up the nut to remove it off the endlink bolt I got the bolt too hot and melted the teflon retaining ring inside the endlink balljoint itself. I'm going to bring it to my Mazda Dealer to have them replace it. I was able to heat up my drivers side rear endlink without damaging the teflon endlink retaining ring inside the ball joint.

The moral of the story is if you have to heat up the nut do so carefully and quickly so as not to heat up the bolt too much. Like I said I was able to heat up the nut on the drivers side without melting the teflon so you just need to be careful.

 

The other moral should be, if you don't own an AC drill, go borrow, beg, or buy one. Cordless is handy, but they run out of torque real quick and you spend more time waiting for it to charge than you do using it.

It's all good, Shaun. I had fun, and your wife is quite the cook.

 

An hour total, and I was already exhausted from a game of flag football in the morning. Lesson, don't get fat and out of shape.

With a proper AC drill, honing out the end-link mounting points took about 3 seconds each. One good pull with my breaker bar on each end-link was enough to free them up. Thanks to this write-up and the experience working on Shaun's car, it was a snap. Hopefully I'm not too awful sore in the morning so I can go out and feel out the new parts.

And all you former east-coasters complaining about Seattle not salting the roads, this is why you should be happy. Our cars don't dissolve in the winter months.

 

Glad to hear it went off without a hitch Kris. So have you had a chance to go for a drive yet.

 

Yeah, I got out in the wet for a couple hours yesterday. Preliminary impressions, considering the low traction conditions, are positive. The car definitely rolls less and has more traction. It's much more aggressive when she takes a light set in a corner. Much better feedback. She also stays balanced better. Handling was always well balanced, a little too much push, but she is a road car. Now, there's less push, and she doesn't get upset as easily by brake or throttle application. On the flip side, as with any handling improvement, the edge is a lot more abrupt. The further you push out the edge of adhesion, the steeper the slope once you go over. For the first time in a long while I found myself dipping in to TC repeatedly. Not enough for her to bog down, just enough I could feel a little grind, and she refused to give me any more throttle, which was a nice change. Hopefully the roads will stay dry and I'll be able to REALLY feel her out today.

 

Well, I hit a couple of my favorite local roads in the dry yesterday. The handling improvements are enough I don't have an accurate paradigm to push the car any more. Have to get a LOT more seat time now. Unfortunately, I did pick up a clunk somewhere up front when going over bumps with just one side of the car. Obviously sway-bar related, so now I need to get back under there and see what came loose.

Making it even tougher to push the car, I think my 2nd gear syncro is COMPLETELY TOAST. The damned bean counters obviously were involved in that part of the car. I have to be quite deliberate putting her into gear on acceleration, and have miraculous timing slowing down.

I'm not entirely certain 2nd gear is the right one for most of these corners (it used to be, but...). However, until I can dive in deep and late then jump off the corners hard and early, it's tough to tell how much more speed I can carry. It's definitely 10+mph easy on most corners, which still has me wanting 2nd, but it may not be necessary.

 

Noice. Sorry to hear about your synchro. I just took mine out to Mercer Island Way tonight and man is it happy! So flat and confidence inspiring. It breezes through corners that at speeds that used to make me kick off the traction control. Me likey...

 

Hi All. Just wanted to add some long term followup. After a week or so I started hearing some clunking and groaning over potholes and rough roads. I found that I needed to re torque the swaybar endlinks and shock piston nuts. It's much quieter and the clunking and groaning is gone.

I recommend after a week or two of driving that you do this.

 

thanks for all the info guys -- it helped a lot with my install!!

the rb sways are bad ***. i lowered the car with tein s about a year ago, and that difference in handling was great. i wish i could feel the sways first, then the drop, out of curiosity, but i can say the combo of tein s springs and rb sways (front and rear) is amazing. wish the car came like this stock, although it feels good to mod it. the tire breaking point is a little scary, like someone said -- it stays so flat you don't realize how fast you're going until you feel the dsc kick in when the tires break loose a little! definitely will be taking it easy to get a really good feel of how far i can safely push it now!!

i did just experience power steering loss, posted here, let me know if you guys can comment on it! here

 

If you drop the plastic undercover is it possible to do the RB front bar install without removing the front wheels? I prefer using ramps.

I installed the rear bar late Sunday night while I was putting the MS exhaust in but didn't have time to get to the front.

 

??? can't you have insert an allen key(hex wrench) to the bolt and use a wrench to loosen the endlink?

if not all models are like that... well, there's still an easier way to do it.
-use a thin grinding wheel. put a notch into the bolt. use a flat screwdriver to hold the notch made in the bolt and use a wrench to loosen.

same technique used to remove frozen screws holding down brake rotors...

 

^^ To answer your question I tried that first and was able to round off the allen key slot in the endlink bolt before it freed up. So I had to use more drastic measures.

This worked on my drivers side endlinks but not the passenger side. I blame it on the east coast road salt I spent two winters in. Us East Coasters always have a tougher time on the passenger side suspension stuff because thats where the plows push all the snow and salt when they come through. It then gets kicked up in the wheel wells and proceeds to rust everything on that side of the car first.

 

Maybe, but I really doubt it. You have to turn the steering wheel back and forth several times to get the right clearances, and even with the wheels off, it's tight.

 

Does anyone know where I can pick up new rear end links without having to order them?

Or the least expensive place to order some from?

 

The dealership should have them.

 

They should only be about $30 each.

 

^at the dealership? $30 for each link? so 60 for the both rears?

 

Yes. You can buy them online as well from Rosenthal or Trussville Mazda.

$25 each:
http://www.trussvillemazda.com/?http...azdaparts.com/

 

This may sound kind of silly but it there some trick to getting the wheels off? I have the car on jack stands and took the 5 lug nuts off but it just won't budge.