Hey guys, received the bar today and was asked if I could take pictures along the way. Decided I should just do a DIY!
1.) Open your box, and get excited!
2.) Here is my xB waiting to be risen for some modification
3.) Jack up your xB via the two jack points. Make sure to use wheel chokes up front and jack stands. You will need your jack later on, plus, its unsafe to support the vehicle via the jack at anytime.
4.) A look under "before".
5.) Use a 17mm 6-point socket and a breaker-bar to remove the shock bolt. May need to use a wrench on the nut-end depending.
6.) Nut off!
7.) I used the jack to push up on the spring/shock assembly so I can easily remove the bolt. Very helpful!
8.) Put in place the endlink. You need a 13mm wrench for this. They *ARE* left/right orientated, so make sure where you will attach the sway bar that it faces the rear of the car. I used a little Loctite 242 on the nut before I tightened it. (Torque to 32ft/lb, but it was impossible to get the torque wrench into that space. Guesstimate!)
9.) Used the jack to then lift up the assembly again so I can replace the shock bolt. It may be a good idea to clean the bolt threads with some alcohol and ensure there is no added friction along the way when you tighten the bolt (such as rust, or in my case, loctite from when I previously removed these bolts to install the springs). At this point, DO NOT TORQUE.
10.) Next, I used an old metal coat hanger to hold the bar up so I could mount it on the endlink. I did not torque the bolts at this point, just put them on to hold.
11.) Now do the other side. Same process as the left... Use breaker bar to loosen bolt, use jack to lift assembly, and remove nut and bolt.
12.) Install endlink the same way as before. Use jack to lift spring/shock assembly and replace bolt and nut. Do not torque this end either. Place other end of sway bar on the link, finger tighten. Should look like this:
13.) Random shot of install.
14.) Use the supplied silicon grease and lube up the bushing well. I lubed the bar as well, between the two welded points in which the bushing will go. No need to measure on the redesign. Just "spread" the bushing and push on, both sides.
15.) Assemble the brackets as instructed. Make sure orientation of the bolts are correct and use washers on both ends (at "head" of bolt and before you place the lock-nut). The drivers side is tricky to tighten the rear-horizontal bolt due to the gas tank(?), so you will need to use two 13mm wrenches for this, but all the others you can use one 13mm wrench and one ratchet. Its not bad, just a little time consuming. These are torqued to 24ft-lbs. Once one side is in place you can remove the bungee cord, coat hanger, or whatever else you help up the bar with.
16.) At this point, the sway is now installed but you are NOT done yet! Remember, we now need to torque everything so stuff doesn't fall off! For the endlinks, I applied a little bit of Loctite 242 and torqued both sides (obviously!) to 32ft-lbs.
17.) You are now ready to lower the car back to the ground. But you are still not done. You have to torque the shock bolts to 67ft-lbs, but after you lower it and push on the back end a few times to settle the suspension. I torqued to spec and then drove up my ramps so I had more room. You must have the weight of the car on the rear suspension before you torque those bolts. This is why you should not do it while it is on jack stands.
18.) Car was on my ramps (or you could leave it on the ground, but its a little tight for me), and I went through and torqued all the bolts to spec. Endlinks, shock bolts, and brackets. You are now finished.
19.) Remove from ramps and go drive around! All done!
Install was really straight forward and quite easy. I just take my time and make sure I do it properly. Took me about 1hr to complete.
Tpok it out for a spin and absolutely love how it feels. It is not as "rigid" as I was expecting in terms of road-roughness from what I have heard about other sway bars (good thing!), it actually feels near the same as it was before the install. The bushings may have something to do with this versus the 1st gen's "rigid" design. But when you take a fast corner you can feel the rear "sticking" opposed to wanting to lean out. The car still has some body sway don't get me wrong, but in general, it feels much more controlled and reduces the rear under-steer quite a bit. You can accelerate out of turns much better with the sway installed. This is how the car should feel out of the factory! Feels so good!
If you have any questions feel free to ask! Hope this helps some of you in the future!
