newgsman

iTrader: (4)

For few months my car was making clunking sounds going over just about any imperfections on the road. The sound d was most pronounced at low speeds. Sometimes you could feel the clunking reverberating through to the floorboard. A mechanic whom I sometimes go to when I don't have time to work on my car myself checked out the front end of my car. He checked all the ball joints, control arms, bushings etc and didn't notice anything. Finally as a last resort, he bounced the suspension by pushing down on the driver side fender and was able to reproduce the sound. After careful examination we could see that the sway bar was shifting away from its mounting as the car was bounced. It turned out that the sway bar bracket was cracked. This is not the U-shaped bracket but actually the bracket which bolts to the frame rail and to which the U-shaped sway bracket is bolted too. These brackets are bolted with four bolts to the frame rail. I told my mechanic I would have to try and source these used somewhere. Lucky for me I found a seller selling a used sway bar complete with the brackets. When I removed my broken ones, the driver side bracket was held in place with basically one bolt out of four. Two bracket holes were separated from the main body of the bracket while a third was all together missing. It is a wonder the sway bar was still attached to the car. On the passenger side only two bolts were actually holding the bracket to the car. Once I changed everything out all of the clunking sounds were gone and my car is tracking much flatter again. I have TRD sways BTW.

When I was removing the broken brackets I noticed that the bolts did not seem very tight. My guess is that the bolts for the bracket probably loosened up over time sufficiently that the bracket started flexing and eventually the bolt flanges started cracking and breaking. I would suggest people check this out on their cars if you hear clunking sounds. You should also check to see if all of the bracket bolts are torqued up tight.

badblackgs

iTrader: (1)

that kind of write up is what these forums are exactly for. good write up and im sure someone will benefit from it. how do the trd sways handle? worth getting? im searching for some sways myself.

newgsman

iTrader: (4)

I put the TRD sways about five or six years ago and I think they are great. I suspect the bracket issue has been going on for several months because I did also notice that the car was feeling a tad squirlly. With the new brackets and everything bolted up it really seemed like I put brand new sways on again. In fact just this afternoon I took my car for an hour long ride just because it was riding so nice again. I would recommend them along with a suspension upgrade or update. I am running KYB with L-tuned springs. Use to have Bilsteins with L-sportline springs but I like the present setup better for daily driving comfort and stability.