Front sway bar bushing replacement

nightfire · Post by **nightfire** » July 9th, 2007, 1:59 am

How much work is it? Is it possible to access the brackets/bushings without dropping the crossmember and a bunch of other stuff? It's hard to tell from the shop manual.

Anyone make polyurethane bushings still?

mx3autozam · Post by **mx3autozam** » July 9th, 2007, 8:55 am

Yes I believe Mazdaspeed has front busings for them. Look on Corksport.

nightfire · Post by **nightfire** » July 9th, 2007, 4:21 pm

mx3autozam wrote:Yes I believe Mazdaspeed has front busings for them. Look on Corksport.

I could only find control arm bushing kits there. Hrmm.

I might just grab a set of OE replacements and brackets and see if I can fill them myself.

nope-mx3 · Post by **nope-mx3** » July 9th, 2007, 6:38 pm

I think I saw some posts about modifying some Energy Suspension poly bushes to fit.

-n

Whisper · Post by **Whisper** » July 9th, 2007, 9:24 pm

You have to drop the crossmember and such. It's a quite a bit of work. You can kind of reach the bushings from inside the wheel well but I doubt it's possible to swap them out that way.

I got the 22mm Energy Suspension bushings. These ones, I think:

http://www.energysuspensionparts.com/pr ... rod=9.5126

They're a little bigger on the outer diameter, but I'm not sure how much bracket modification was required, because I had the shop put them in. The guys didn't mention any complications when installing, so I'm assuming it's not too bad. Upon inspecting the result, at least from what I can see, it looks like the stock brackets are on there and are just kind of squeezing the bushings to fit around them.

So it's doable, if you have to do it. It's just a matter of how worn yours are. Mine were in a pretty bad shape, so the new ones made a difference.

nightfire · Post by **nightfire** » July 10th, 2007, 1:22 am

Whisper wrote:You have to drop the crossmember and such. It's a quite a bit of work. You can kind of reach the bushings from inside the wheel well but I doubt it's possible to swap them out that way.

I got the 22mm Energy Suspension bushings. These ones, I think:

http://www.energysuspensionparts.com/pr ... rod=9.5126

They're a little bigger on the outer diameter, but I'm not sure how much bracket modification was required, because I had the shop put them in. The guys didn't mention any complications when installing, so I'm assuming it's not too bad. Upon inspecting the result, at least from what I can see, it looks like the stock brackets are on there and are just kind of squeezing the bushings to fit around them.

So it's doable, if you have to do it. It's just a matter of how worn yours are. Mine were in a pretty bad shape, so the new ones made a difference.

Nice. I just ordered a set. I'll wait till I do my engine swap to install them.

Thanks everyone.

luisitol · Post by **luisitol** » July 10th, 2007, 9:25 am

what size is the stock front swaybar?

Whisper · Post by **Whisper** » July 10th, 2007, 4:07 pm

I'm not sure if it varies based on year and trim, but it should be 22mm on the GS (and rear should be 20 mm).