Need help removing sway bars and knuckle !!!

[mrfunny107]

I am doing the rear disc brake conversion on my 2001 GT. and i was wondering how to remove the sway bars and get the hub off the knuckle? i have been pounding on it with a metal hammer and sprayed pb blaster and the darn thing wont come off.

I even lowered the car to try to stress them into atleast loosen em but still no luck.

Also how do you get the knuckle off the car i have a hard time understanding the sway bar bolt and the at the bottom.

please help!!

[wnanna]

I ended up having to cut the bolts to the end link (thing that goes straight up and down and connects the sway bar to vehicle frame). I bought some t handle hex wrenches to put in the middle of the bolt and used an open end socket 14mm or whatever size bolt that was. That loosened it some but eventually the hex end stripped out. Good luck man, I spent plenty of hrs on those stupid things.

[mrfunny107]

thanks ill give it a go.

[TRD01GT]

I did my rear brake conversion not so long ago, I'll see if I can help you. Do you have any access to air tools? If you want to try and get the hub/bearing assembly out first and they won't come out by banging on them, try putting all 4 bolts back in 1/4 of the way, just thread them in a little, and hammer on each of those bolts separately, you risk damaging the bolt, so I suggest you have a replacement handy, but I got a few stubborn hubs out that way. I had to cut the spindles out on my car, because I couldn't get the 2 bottom bolts out, I work in a shop and had access to some heavy tools, but they didn't help.

For the rear sway bar links, you can use a vice grip to grab the stud from behind the sway bar, and zip off the nut, put a torch on the nut if it still won't move. It is possible to do all this without damaging the rubber boot, have a spray bottle handy if things get too hot. But why are you trying to get the links off if you're not replacing the spindles?

[scarface]

I found on my caliper mounting bolts (siezed) that by actually tightening the bolt first then trying to back it off worked well. Also using a rubber mallot and wrench and a whole lot of curse words and muscle and two beers later....voila.

But before I did my rear sway I hit all the bolts with wd40 a week before. Then early in the morning before I started and all the bolts came out like butter. Accept for the endlink where u need the allen key. That one stuck a bit but it didn't strip. Give the pb blaster time to soak in and let it do its thing then try again in a day or so. Bonne chance mon ami

[bunkkaws84]

I was pretty lucky and was shipped the knuckle with the hub attatched so it was a pretty straightforward swap.

However just note that the GT and GT-S e-brake lines are NOT interchangable (tried to cut corners and use the GT e-brake line and wasted hours) and neither are the brake lines. GT has metal lines to the drum and the GTS has rubber.

the downside is to swapping the knuckle is that the knuckle is attatched with an alignment screw (toe or camber, not sure) so had to get an alignment afterwards.

Almost like a lose lose either way for the install. However once it's done it's worth every penny!