Replaces
Part Details
Our steering and suspension components are pre-greased and sealed for long life and do not require the extra maintenance typically required by greaseable versions.
Item Condition:
New
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WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including Lead and Lead Compounds, which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, and birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.
Lifetime Warranty
This item is backed by our limited lifetime warranty. In the event that this item should fail due to manufacturing defects during intended use, we will replace the part free of charge. This warranty covers the cost of the part only.
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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. I hope this how-to video helps you out, and next time you need parts for your vehicle, think of 1AAuto.com. Thanks!
In this video, we're going to show you front sway bar link replacement. This is a 2003 Honda Civic, it's pretty much the same for a 2001 to 2005 Civic, as well as some other Honda vehicles. We show you on the driver side, but the passenger side is the exact same procedure, and if one side is broken on your car, most likely replacing the other side is a good idea as well.
Items you'll need include new stabilizer link or links from 1AAuto.com, 14mm wrench, a 19mm socket and breaker bar or tire iron, 5mm hex bit, ratchet and extension, and, as you'll see, we used a reciprocating saw, so you might find that you'll need one too.
We'll remove the front wheel, held on by four 19mm lug nuts. If you have a different style hubcap you'll need to remove that, but just use a breaker bar or your tire iron and loosen the lug nuts while the tire is on the ground. Now raise and support the vehicle. Now remove the lug nuts the rest of the way, and the wheel and tire.
For this repair, you want to make sure that you have your vehicle level. You need to raise up the front of the vehicle and support both sides, and you can turn the wheel. Your link is right here.
First thing we're going to do is just use a wire brush and some penetrating oil to try and clean off these threads as much as we can to make it easier to get apart. 14mm wrench, put it on here, and turn counterclockwise. It looks like this is already spinning, so 5mm hex socket. You may want to make sure that your bit's in there, hammer 'til you drive it in.
We've gotten the bottom one loosened up, put the wrench on the top one, and then we'll do the same thing, we'll drive the 5mm hex socket in. We've got it loosened up, and what's happened is what happens a lot on these. These lock-nuts actually bind up more and more as you get them off, and they get harder and harder, and then the 5mm hex strips out. What most shops do is they don't even bother with the nuts, they just cut these off right from the beginning.
Using a torch can be intimidating, so we're going to just show you how to use a reciprocating saw. We've got a set of locking pliers on there just to hold it in place a little bit. Now we'll just cut it off. Now the upper one, again, holding it with my locking pliers.
Here's the new part from 1A Auto. I like this design a little better since it has the hex on the end, but also has bolt head, so you can hold it with a wrench on the backside. We'll go and install that.
Put it in and start the nut on the backside. Put the bottom into the control arm, thread your nut on, and the technical spec on these is 29 foot-pounds. It's easy enough to get a torque wrench on this one, but getting a torque wrench on the inner one is pretty difficult.
Put your wheel back in place, start your lug nuts, we'll tighten them preliminarily, and then torque them when the vehicle's back down on the ground. Then tighten your lug nuts, 80 foot-pounds and just cross in the pattern.
Any time you do work on your brakes, make sure you pump the pedal. Get a nice firm pedal before you test drive the vehicle.
Thanks for tuning in. We hope this video helped you out. Next time you need parts for your car, please visit 1AAuto.com. Also check out our other helpful how-to and diagnosis videos.
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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years!
Hi, everyone. Sue here from 1A Auto. Today, on our 06 Honda Element, I'm going to show you how to replace front sway bar links. If you need those parts or any other parts for your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1aauto.com.
To remove the tire, you need a 19 millimeter socket. The vehicle has weight on it so that I can loosen up each lug nut as I go around. I'm using a two post lift. At home, you can use jack and jack stands. Now, I have it up in the air, I'm just going to remove all the lug nuts. Beautiful. We can discard the hubcap.
14 millimeter wrench and a number five Allen head socket, and I'm going to put the 14 millimeter wrench on the sway link nut, and then I'm going to install the Allen head in the stud with the cut out, and I'm going to loosen up. You get yourself at a good spot and you feel like a ratchet wrench is going to work, then you can move on to that. Take the Allen head socket off and you should be able to get this right off. I'm going to take a pry bar and see if can pull that right out of the cut out. There we go. Nice.
I'm going to break the inner nut free on that sway bar link. It's a 14 millimeter like the lower. There we go. Now we can put the Allen head, which is a number five Allen head socket. Put it right in the center. There's not much room for the ratchet, I mean for the wrench. I'll use the ratchet to back that off. There you have it. Here we go. There is the sway bar link.
Here we have our new sway bar link for the front of our 06 Honda Element from 1A Auto. And, here we have the factory sway bar link that I just took out. They're both a sealed units. They both have no grease fittings. They're both offset, so there is a left and a right for the front. The new ones from 1A Auto come with lock nuts. You can see how they're oval shaped to make sure they go on one at a time, and that's it. The difference is the factory has an Allen hole, so you put the nut on, and obviously the spindles that spin, and then you got to put Allen head in there and mess with that. The new upgrade from 1A is a wrench. You put a 14 millimeter wrench on the inside, a 14 millimeter there, and you can hold that stiff, tighten that down the way you want to and not have to worry about a stripped hole on the Allen head. If you need this part or any other part for your car, click on the link below, and head on over to 1aauto.com.
I'm going to put my new sway bar link in. I'm going to put in the bar first, and I'm going to start the nut in the back. You can only go on so far with the your hands, because of the oval shape to it. It's oval. That's the way it's made from the factory, so that it locks down and doesn't fall of on you. So, 14 millimeter wrench to hold the inside of the stud, and a 15 millimeter socket go on the lock nut. I'm just going to start tightening up.
Okay, the torque specs on these sway bar links is the nut on the sway bar itself is 16 foot pounds, and the nut on the control arm is 29 foot-pounds. I don't make it. I just read it. Let's see if I can get the wrench back on there. That's tight. I'm going to take a pry bar and I'm going to slide it up through here so that I can lift that up and line up the sway bar. Beautiful. Put the new nut on. I'm going to tighten this down. Now, we're going to torque the nut to 29 foot pounds.
Mount the tire again. The reason why I put the tire on before I tighten the top of the strut is because I want the weight of the vehicle on the suspension to ensure that I'm not pulling up on that cap, the strut cap, and that can warp the studs on the outer edge. I want the vehicle weight down holding it up, and then I can get a true torque and tightening of it. Grab your hubcap, because this particular Honda does not have extra wide cut outs for three lug nuts. Set the rim up on the hub and put your lug nuts on. The wheel torque, now I've got the weight of the vehicle down on the tire, and I'm going to torque up the wheels. The wheel torque in a factory's spec is 80 foot pounds.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1aauto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
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Hi, I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years!
Hi, everyone. Sue here from 1A Auto, and today on our '06 Honda Element, I'm going to show you how to remove and replace the rear sway bar links from 1A Auto. If you need that part or any other part from your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1aauto.com
19 mm socket and we're going to break free the lug nuts. You got the pressure of the vehicle on the tire still, so it doesn't turn. I use the two-post lift. At home, you can a jack and jack stands. I'm going to take all the lug nuts off and remove the tire.
I'm going to the spray the rear sway bar links, nuts, rusted nuts. 15 mm wrench, and I'm going to break free the lower sway bar mounting nut. And then the actual stud for the sway bar links, that's to spin. So what we have to do now is get a allen socket, and it's a 5 mm. I'm going to use a ratchet wrench, and then I'm going to put my 5 mm allen head socket on there. Holding it the opposite way, I'm going to start ratcheting that. It will get harder as it gets towards the edge of there, 'cause it's trying to push that rust out on the threads. So don't get discouraged.
And hopefully, that doesn't happen. So if the allen head falls out, sometimes that might get rounded. Let's see if we can get it to go back in. I'll take hammer, see if I can get it to go in there a little. See if I can hopefully get it to hold. If your allen head strips out, you're going to have to use some locking pliers and hold the back of the stud from spinning so you can get that mounting nut off. There you go. Okay.
We're going to do the same thing for the top. We're going to use a longer wrench to see if I can break it free. There you go. I can put my allen head in there with a ratchet wrench, see if we can get this to go a little faster. There we go.
Now we can just discard that. And then, here's your rear sway bar link. Here we have the new rear sway bar link from 1A Auto, and here we have the one we just removed. The new one from 1A Auto comes with self-locking nuts. It does have the allen head inverted so that you can tighten it. And they're both sealed, same length. If you need this part or any other part for your car, click on the link below and head on over to 1aauto.com.
Now we're going to install the rear sway bar link. We're going to put the top in first and then line up the bottom. Put them right through the mounting hole. I've got two self-locking nuts. 15 mm wrench, I'm using a ratchet wrench.
The nice thing is that the 1A Auto link comes with the allen head. So once that starts to spin, I can use it to hold it. Some of the manufacturers come with allen or a Torx bit, or they have the cutout of a hex, like a nut, on the back. And then you have the ones that have nothing, and you have to put a pair of locking pliers back there. That's great if you're taking it out, the old one. But to replace it like that, I don't know, I'm not a fan. You could damage the boot.
So there are no torque specs for this rear sway bar link, so I'm just going to snug it. Going to use my extra long ratchet, get a little bit better leverage, bottom that right out. Going to do the same with the bottom. Same size 15mm and 5mm allen head. I just don't want this to rattle and bang, the suspension to make noise. So it's important to make sure that's really bottomed out.
Let's put the lug nuts back on. It's a 19mm socket. Just going to tighten them all down, then I lower it down and torque it. So I'm going to torque the wheels to manufacturer's spec, which is 80 foot pounds. And to always do it in a star pattern. Double check.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1aauto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
