2004 GMC Sierra 3500 4 Wheel Drive with RPO Code JH6 (Hydraulic Power 4 Wheel Disc Brakes, 9900lb) with Single Rear Wheels (SRW) Front 12 Piece Steering, Suspension, & Drivetrain Kit TRQ PSA30318

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Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20-plus years experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts, installed correctly that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.

In this video, we're going to replace the sway bar links in this 2002 GMC 2500HD, basically the same as most '88 to '06 GM pickups, SUVs, vans; also the same as a couple of Ford applications. Tools you'll need are a jack and jack stands for some vehicles, 14 mm socket and ratchet or whatever is correct for your link, they could be different depending on application, an adjustable wrench, and some penetrating oil.

Your stabilizer link is right up underneath. This big bar here is your stabilizer bar, and then here is your control arm. It's connected by this, which is the stabilizer link right here. This can break. Also, these bushings, these rubber bushings can wear out, which will cause a rattling sometimes when you go over bumps. You have a good idea if it's the stabilizer link if, when you go around a turn, the rattling stops. I'm going to show you how to replace that.

On top, you're going to want to spray some penetrating fluid. This is a 14 mm bolt down here at the bottom. What you're going to want to do is put an adjustable wrench onto this side. This is an original link here, so the thing on top is kind of bolt-shaped. I've got that on there to hold it. Now I'm going to attempt to slowly unscrew it.

The bolt comes down, and that can come out. Then you can see, even though there's nothing too terribly wrong, you can see that this one is worn, right in here, so we'll replace it. On the original you can see this top nut has edges to it so you can get that wrench on there to hold it in place. We've gotten it out of there, but we still have this in place. Just pull that right out, like that. I'm going to take my new link and I'm going to put it up through. This bushing has the ridge up into the control arm. Then I'm going to take a bushing down and then a washer on top of that, then my spacer. Then I'm going to take a bushing and a washer, and now the step goes up into the sway bar. Then just push that.

In order to get this in, what I've done is this is a little jack. If you're doing this just on the ground, you can do the same thing. Put the jack in underneath the stabilizer bar here, lift it up, and create plenty of room to push that up through. Then you want to make sure these bushings all go right into the holes in the stabilizer bar, right there, and the control arm. This last bushing goes with the ridge down, then the washer on top. I'm going to put the jack right in underneath here, push this up in to get the nut on.

I've got this together and I've got the nut started on there. I'm going to replace the other side first before I tighten it up. I wouldn't take apart the other side here you can see, this is the one from the driver's side and this is the one from this side, so you can see this whole part was rough and it broke off. It's possible this link wasn't really doing anything anyways. This here that broke off of this one is stuck inside there. What I'm going to have to do is I'm going to have to actually cut this link with my Sawzall. I'm going to do that very carefully, because I don't want to contact the boot or anything else. I don't want to contact the CVs. I just want to cut through the link itself.

Now with the car on the ground, you want to tighten up the links. I'm just using an air ratchet. You can hand tools, obviously. Tighten up both sides and you're done.
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One of the first things we need to do is safely raise and support the vehicle, so the wheel is off the ground. Let's remove our 22-millimeter lug nuts. Remove your wheel.

Now that the wheel's off of here, we have a clear view of the sway bar link. What you're going to notice is, up along the top, it has a strange-looking nut. It's very thin. It's going to be hard to grab onto. I'm going to use a pair of locking pliers to try to grab onto it. Using my 15-millimeter socket, I'm going to come down from the bottom here. Now I'm going to use my 14-millimeter socket down along the bottom here, see if we can get this to come apart. Looks like it's starting to turn.

Okay. So, for us, the outer sheath on this broke free from the bolt itself that's supposed to be running through the center, so I'm just going to go ahead and spray this down with some penetrant, let that soak down and through there. Sometimes, what happens is, is this outer portion will actually freeze or get stuck onto the bolt. If that's the case, what you would either want to do is grab onto the outer portion with some locking pliers, and then try to spin out that bolt. If that doesn't work, you might have to just cut the bolt itself. There's the bolt. Let's get all this out of here. Awesome.

So, now, assuming you're doing the sway bar links as a pair, now is the best time to go ahead and start doing the other side as well. Okay. Once you have both sides out, you should be able to move the bar around a little bit at this point. We're going to grab our new sway bar links. We take off the nut, take off the washer and the bushing, the washer and the bushing, and then, of course, the sheath, washer and bushing again, and we're going to leave it just like this.

Now, as we come up, okay, coming up from under the control arm, we still have the bolt with the washer and the bushing. Now we're going to take our bushing with our washer, put that facing down and towards the control arm. Grab your spacer, put that on there. We're going to push this up a little bit further. Now you're going to go washer, facing up, bushing. Get it underneath that sway bar. Bring it up. Bushing again.

If you were to look at these bushings, you can tell that they have like a rounded area, and then they have this area right here with a little like a piton. The piton is going to be going either towards the control arm or towards the sway bar. Set that on there, this one right here, and then, of course, our locking nut. I like to use a little thread locker on these.

I'm just going to use my 14-millimeter wrench, and of course, my ratchet underneath, and I'm going to start snugging it up. As I snug it, I want to be watching these bushings. What I want to see is the bushing touching up against the bar, on both sides of course. And, of course, down by the control arm there, we want those bushings to be touching up against it as well. We don't necessarily want to continue tightening, though, until the point where they seem like they're getting squished down and even pancaking out. So, let's just snug them up so they're all touching at least, and then we'll continue on.

Okay. So, this looks great. As you can tell, all of my bushings are touching exactly where they need to be touching. And you're also going to notice that I didn't continue tightening until they flattened out, like I had said before. This looks pretty great, so I'm just going to take a quick measurement of it. It looks like it's approximately the width of my thumb, personally, so I'm going to make sure that I go approximately the same on the other side of the vehicle.

Okay. Now it's going to be time to get the wheel up on here. Slide it on. Now we'll get the lug nuts on here, we'll bottom them out, and then we'll torque them to manufacturer specifications. Let's torque these lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds. Torqued.

Now one of the first things you're going to want to do before you start any job is to make sure you're safe as possible. You want to have safety glasses and hand protection at all times. The next thing you're going to want to do is safely raise and support your vehicle so that your wheel is off the ground. Next, if there's a center cap, remove the plastic center cap and that'll expose your lug nuts. Remove all six using a 22-millimeter socket. Remove your wheel.

Now that we have a nice clear view of our tie rods, I'm going to spray down this area right here. This is the adjustment area. Use a little bit of penetrant. That's going to help you along. Using some nice long pliers, I'm going to grab right onto this and I'm going to turn it clockwise. That'll break free this jam nut. Okay, that broke free. Let's remove the nut that holds that outer tie rod end to the knuckle. Now we're going to hit right here on the knuckle to break our outer tie rod end free from the knuckle.

Turn your outer tie rod end counter-clockwise and count the amount of times it turns around as you remove it. One, two, three, and so on. Okay. Write down that corresponding number so you can remember. Now it's going to be time to get the inner tie rod end off of here. Here's the new inner tie rod end. And if you were to look right along this edge right here, that's the area we're going to need to grab onto, and then turn this counter-clockwise to break it free and eventually remove it. So we'll come right under here with our nice long pliers and get it off of there. There we go.

There it is friends. Now it's going to be time to install our new inner tie rod end. You might notice that there's no grease fitting to be able to grease this. Really there is. The grease is going to come right through that hole right there and that'll happen through here, starting at this point right here at this fitting. Put grease here, it comes right through and then of course it fills up the boot on the inner tie rod end. All right. I put some thread locker on here. I'm just going to go ahead and start this thing by hand. Now that we have that, as far as we can get it by hand, let's go ahead and snug it up with our pliers. Bottomed out. Just give it a teeny bit more. Awesome. Let's remove that jam nut. Let's put a little bit of copper never seize on the inner tie rod end threads, and then we'll just work that jam nut up the inner tie rod end quite a bit here. Now that we have the threaded area coded, we have our outer tie rod end, let's go ahead and put that on. And we're going to count it in the same amount of threads that we counted the original one off. That was one, two, three, and so on.

Okay? Just bring this so it's close. Put that node off of there. Put this on there. Let's bottom that out. Now we're going to torque this nut to 48 foot-pounds. All right. So now that we have that torqued, we need to pay special attention to where the slot on the castle nut lines up with the hole in the stud. If it doesn't line up, you need to continue tightening until it does. Okay. So that looks pretty good. Let's try it. That slides right through, just pin it over. The cotter pin is going to ensure that there's no way that this nut can come loose. Now it's going to be time to tighten up your jam nut. To tighten this, we're going to turn it counter-clockwise. When you torque it, you would want to torque it to 37 foot-pounds if you have the ability.

Okay. Just make sure that it's nice and snug. By the time you're finished, make sure your outer tie rod end is nice and parallel to the ground or at least as parallel as it can be. Now it's going to be time to get the grease fitting out of here. Use your 8-millimeter. There it is. Let's clean off around the area. Grab your new grease fitting. We'll start it right in there by hand, and then we'll snug it up, nice and tight. Let's give it a little grease

Now let's get the wheel back up on here. Okay. Now with the wheel barely on the ground so it can't spin, we're going to torque the lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds. Torqued. If you have a center cover, put it on there now. Now that you've finished your service, go ahead and take it for a road test and make sure you get it down to a local reputable alignment shop.

I'm going to use a 22-millimeter socket to take off the lug nuts so we can remove the wheel, then I remove the wheel. So I'm going to use some pliers at the top of the sway bar link right there, and then underneath, I'm gonna use a 14-millimeter socket and just take the link out. A long bolt goes straight through just like that. And take the top off just like that. Now just take a pry bar underneath here. Just raise up on the sway bar, take the link out, all right. So we'll just take the new link apart, and just leave the washer and the bushing on this long bolt. And take the other bushing and the washer, line that up first.

And then this tube goes next. Slide that bolt through, and then another washer and the bushing. Align this up and slide the bushing and the washer. Pry down on the bar. And then it would help if you had someone to help you out to pry this while you're holding this and getting the nuts started. All right, that's good. And then use a 14-millimeter wrench for the nut and a 14-millimeter socket and tighten this down. And then you want to torque this to 89 inch-pounds. Make sure you're on inch-pounds, not foot-pounds. Now, put the tire back and lug nuts. Now we're gonna torque the lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds in a star pattern or a cross pattern so that it tightens the wheel down evenly. And just go around again. Double Check.

You want to keep in mind when you're doing this job after you're done, you're going to want to go to a local garage and have the vehicle aligned so you don't have premature tire wear. Take the center cap off. I'll just use a straight blade screwdriver, just get behind here, slide it off. Take the lug nuts off. Use a 22-millimeter socket. Gonna take the wheel off. [inaudible 00:00:34] off this jam nut. I'm going to use a 7/8 wrench. And just take some rust penetrant, this thing is a little bit rusty so let that soak a little bit. Gonna take a 18-millimeter socket, take this nut off. And take a hammer and just hit the bottom of the tie rod to release it from the knuckle. Just like that.

Now when I take off the tie rod, just count how many turns you have. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7...21, 22 and write that number down. Now I'm going to take a large adjustable wrench and loosen up the inner tie rod end. And loosen this up and just slide it off. Take a little thread locker, put it on the threads before you put the new one on and line it up. And then use my adjustable wrench to tighten this up. If you have the ability to use a torque wrench and torque this, you want to torque this to 74 foot-pounds. And take the outer tie rod, one, two, and then count the turns that you counted before. Three...21, 22. Take the jam nut not off...I mean the castle nut off and slide it in the knuckle. Slide the stud part into the knuckle. Put the nut on. Just gonna use a pry bar, pry down on the outer tie rod in to prevent the stud from spinning, and just snug this up a little bit. Use the 18-millimeter socket. And torque this to 37 foot-pounds. And if the hole doesn't line up for the cotter pin, just tighten the castle nut until it lines up. Little more. Should be good. Put the cotter pin through. And take my cutters and just bend this over then just trim the excess.

Tighten up this jam nut. I'm going to use a 13/16 wrench, and if you have the ability to torque it, torque it to 36 foot-pounds. There's a grease fitting right here. Just take a grease gun and give it a couple pumps. And I really give it a couple of pumps until I see the boot move a little bit. And that's good. Put the wheel back on. And the lug nuts. And now I'm gonna torque these lug nuts in a star pattern or cross pattern to 140 foot-pounds to tighten the wheel down evenly. And just go around again, double-check. And put the center cap on.

Before you start, you wanna be aware that after you're done this job, you're gonna wanna go to an alignment specialist so that you can have the vehicle aligned so you don't wear out the tires prematurely.

I'm gonna remove the wheel. Use a 22-millimeter socket. Take the lug nuts off. And take the wheel off. I'm gonna loosen up the jam nut. You can use a 22-millimeter wrench or a 7/8 wrench. Just get that loose. That's good. I'm just gonna spray a little rust penetrant on here. And use an 18-millimeter socket, take this nut off. And if the nut doesn't come off and the stud starts spinning, you can use an 8-millimeter socket to hold that stud from spinning, and then just use the wrench to take the nut off. Now you can take a hammer and just give a tap on the bottom of the tie rod, or take a pickle fork and separate it this way. Just if you use a pickle fork, it's probably gonna rip the boot right here. I'm just gonna give it a hit right here. There we go. And now we're gonna take the outer tie rod off. As we unscrew this, just count the threads. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 23, 24. So write that number down. And when you go to put it back together, you're gonna count them to put the other one in the same position that that one was in.

Now I'm gonna take off the inner tie rod end. I'm gonna use a large adjustable wrench because I don't have a wrench that's big enough to fit this. Slide this over and loosen it up. And eventually we'll get that off. Take the inner tie rod end and get this started. Now we're gonna tighten this up with the adjustable wrench. If you have the ability to torque this, you wanna torque this to 74-foot-pounds. Just do the best you can. That's good. Then you wanna take a grease gun and hook it up to this grease fitting and give it a couple pumps. You can do it until you start seeing the boot move a little bit, then you know there's plenty of grease in there. And take the new tie rod end. Get this started. Make sure you count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 22, 23, 24 and line this up in the knuckle. Take the castle nut, get that started. Now, what you can do is to prevent the stud from spinning, you can take a pry bar, just pry in between the knuckle and pry down on the tie rod, use an18-millimeter socket and tighten this up. And tighten this to 37-foot-pounds. And then just check to see where the hole is for the castle nut. And if you need to, you can snug it up a little bit more to get it to line up. And that that hole lines up. Now take the cotter pin, slide it through, actually we'll slide it through this way and take some side cutters and just bend it. Tap it out of the way, and then trim off the excess. And we'll snug up the jam nut and tighten that to 50-foot-pounds. Put the wheel back on and the lug nuts. I'm gonna take these lug nuts down to 140-foot-pounds, and I'm gonna do it in a cross pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly. Just go around again. Double-check.