Rear sway bar keeps flipping forward.

[sothardw]

I have been having problems with my rear sway bar flipping around and facing forward. When this happens, it drops the rear of the car down onto the tires and rubs the suspension together. Makes some real lovely sounds. :-/ Nothing has changed on my car suspension wise since last fall. Last fall I swapped out my Blue Tokico's for the new Tokico Illumina's because one of my rear struts decided to crap out on me. I also replaced the endlinks at the same time with Moog endlinks that are a bit beefier and have the grease fittings on them. I have the Illumina's dampeners set to 2 of 5. This all of the sudden started to happen about 3 weeks ago and I have to pop the endlinks loose and flip the sway bar back over and bolt it all back up at least once a week. It happened again last night on my way home. I didn't hit any potholes or anything. I just noticed that the car started having rubbing sounds from the rear and when I looked... of course it was flipped.

Any idea what is causing this and how to keep this from happening? It has now torn into the rubber jacketing on my e-brake cables. I need to get this fixed asap so that I can go back to driving my car to and from work.

THanks in advance!

 

[JDM323J48]

were the replacement endlinks to suit p5? if so then msp are actually the same as bj series 1 which are longer.

 

[sothardw]

were the replacement endlinks to suit p5? if so then msp are actually the same as bj series 1 which are longer.

This is what I ordered. .. 2003 MAZDA PROTEGE 2.0L L4 Turbocharged
MOOG K80868 Stabilizer Bar Link $*22.79

 

[JDM323J48]

was it the same length as the old one or was it shorter?

 

[njaremka]

end links are too short. MSP endlinks are longer than the regular protege ones, and i wouldn't doubt that the aftermarket links were labeled wrong. go to your closest dealer parts counter, and get the correct links.

 

[sothardw]

end links are too short. MSP endlinks are longer than the regular protege ones, and i wouldn't doubt that the aftermarket links were labeled wrong. go to your closest dealer parts counter, and get the correct links.

They were the same length as the ones I pulled off. I have been running these endlinks for almost a year now and this just started 3 weeks ago. I really don't want to have to buy more endlinks, but it is a positive fix, then I guess I am down to do it. I am just tired of these things. I have to tighten the bolts on them every other month too. They back off a single thread it feels like (when I tighten them back down) and then the back of the car starts clunking over bumps. Tighten them back up and no clunk.

 

[o0n8]

have you tried thread lock on them? use the blue not the red

 

[sothardw]

Sadly, that is what I did this last time before they started flipping over. So yes, but super late in the game on that.

 

[hornsfan10609]

I believe the MOOG endlinks only fit the front, I have the moog escape front endlinks and stock rear endlinks with no issues.

 

[91Protege]

I have the Moog front and rear end links and as long as there the same length they are better then any you can get from the dealer. Does the bar look like its lower then normal? Something would have to be very wrong for a bar to flip over. How are you tightening them? I used my Matco 3/8 impact and never had em move at all. The nuts have little groves in them like a lock washer to keep them from loosening up

 

[sothardw]

I have the Moog front and rear end links and as long as there the same length they are better then any you can get from the dealer. Does the bar look like its lower then normal? Something would have to be very wrong for a bar to flip over. How are you tightening them? I used my Matco 3/8 impact and never had em move at all. The nuts have little groves in them like a lock washer to keep them from loosening up

I have been tightening them with a wrench on the bench flat and a socket on the front.

I contacted RockAuto and ordered some different endlinks. I ordered the Deeza 8.5" only to find out that they are marking all the endlinks with different lengths. Some of the measurements on the site are stud to stud and the others are overall length. So the 8.5" Deeza's came out to being the same size as the 7.25" Moog endlinks. Both sets of endlinks I have ordered say they are for the MPS option and not for the sport suspension. So what am I missing here? What is the size of everyone elses stud to stud length? I am hoping for the end links to still be the prob and not something else...

 

[callphy]

i just put in a order for Agency Power rear adjustable links.

dealer replaced the links and bushing to get rid of the clunk before selling it to me(dealer cheap fix, but at least it didnt clunk for half year and counting）

 

[sothardw]

I got rid of the clunk just by putting the polyurethane bushings on the rear sway bar. I haven't had the "clunk" since.

 

[rally2003]

I've never heard of or seen this happen. Has to be something witht the length of the endlink that when pressure is applied to it the endlink forces the preasure on the bar to rotate in a way it is not suppose to. I guess I never have to worry about it since I have an AWR rear bar. The stock endlinks at autozone should be fine. I used them before I switches bars.

 

[bikingpro5]

do you have any pictures of the bar mounted either flipped or not?

 

[sothardw]

do you have any pictures of the bar mounted either flipped or not?

I can take a pic tonight on my way home. I have my car sitting in a garage. Don't feel like doing more damage to the car than needed with my 70 mile daily commute.

 

[sothardw]

So to tie onto this thread, as I hope it has to do with the suspension, the driver side rear of the car sits about 3/8's to 1/2" lower than the passenger side when nothing and no one is in the car. Any ideas on that one? I really don't want to have to start replacing everything in the back end but I want the car to be right. Ride right and stop having issues with the rear suspension.

 

[njaremka]

So to tie onto this thread, as I hope it has to do with the suspension, the driver side rear of the car sits about 3/8's to 1/2" lower than the passenger side when nothing and no one is in the car. Any ideas on that one? I really don't want to have to start replacing everything in the back end but I want the car to be right. Ride right and stop having issues with the rear suspension.

to be sure, just start measuring everything under the car. the MSP had special struts int he back, which look similar to off-the-shelf tokico's. one of them could have been replaced by a previous owner. MSP sway bar endlinks are a different length from the regular ES/Protege5 set. so, just go around and measure EVERYTHING just to make sure you have the same components on both sides of the car.

 

[sothardw]

to be sure, just start measuring everything under the car. the MSP had special struts int he back, which look similar to off-the-shelf tokico's. one of them could have been replaced by a previous owner. MSP sway bar endlinks are a different length from the regular ES/Protege5 set. so, just go around and measure EVERYTHING just to make sure you have the same components on both sides of the car.

I thought about that and did. I also had a strut fail so I replaced them with Tokico Illumina struts and coils. After that, still the same with the height difference.

 

[njaremka]

if the components are the same left-to-right, i wouldn't be too worried about it. 1/2" isn't that much to be concerned about. if you are feeling ambitious, you could remove your rear sway bar to check if the arms are flat.

are your front ride heights the same?