Front sway bar drop link washers

Can anyone confirm if I need washers on both sides of my drop link sway bar bushings on top and bottom? Outside washer is obvious, but I’m not seeing any good pics for the top and bottom inside part. Thanks

The parts book only lists 4 bevelled washers - so on the outside only.

“Inside bottom” as in between the drop link and the lower control arm? I cam imagine any benefit to that. The flat machined area of the control arm is its own big washer. I do have a thin washer between the two rubber bushings at the top end though. No idea if it’s per factory but it just makes sense to me. You wouldn’t want two pieces of poly rubbing against each other. I also have them on the outsides of that joint, so 3 total on top.

So, not sure how accurate the parts manual is. It says 4, but the bushing that is butting up to the sway bar directly seems to have too small of surface to snug up to.

I used fairly large fender style washers between the link and the sway bar, not huge but large enough to shield the rubber. Bear in mind, you’re off the page of the manual because you’re using those poly bushings that look like thread bobbins. The original style bushings have no rubber rim on the outside. So I just did what seemed best rather than what was original.

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Outside only. nweifopwnbfiweo

Perhaps unnecessary to say this - the purpose of the washer is to prevent the link detaching from the sway bar if the bushing deteriorates and separates from the link - so outside only. The washer needs to be bigger than the bushing obviously.

This shhows what you need to know. It is from the S3 but should be the same as 4.2

Richard Liggitt

Kind of like this…


This resulted in a bent link, or maybe the bend came first…?

All this on a car restored by a “prestigious restoration house”. Oh, by the way, several of the nuts on the front suspension were finger tight. Another reason to DIY.

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In the same car I mentioned in the thread about cams I snapped a custom rod ended link because I didn’t allow enough free play for the movement of the parts. The link moves in a figure 8 as everything goes up and down, and in and out on different (90 degree apart) arcs. Never arrived at a truly satisfactory solution for a hard connected link.
David they don’t ordinarily have a spacer on the bottom like yours shows do they?

Terry,

That isn’t a spacer, though I can see that it looks that way. That is the rubber bushing, exposed when the link slid off because the idiots who assembled the suspension didn’t add the washer that is the subject of this thread. The rear leg of the A-arm stopped the link from completely sliding off, and I suspect it then jammed somehow causing the link to bend. I found it when looking for the source of a clunk from that area when I passed over bumps.

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