Progress Rear Sway Bar Install
This is a DIY for the progress rear sway bar. Although this site has several threads with pictures of the sway, there isn’t a single thread that is a “true” Do It Yourself. This install was pretty easy, and if I help even one person install a sway bar, this thread has served some purpose.
List of things you will need:
progress rear sway bar
Torque wrench (optional but highly recommended)
Open ended 14mm or 9/16” Wrench
Ratchet
Two different length 9/16” or 14mm sockets (one needs to be a deeper socket)
3/16” Alan Wrench
Vice grips or pliers (optional- you never know when something like this could come in handy!)
WD-40
Jack stands
Jack
Something to stop your car from rolling
Here’s what I mean by two sockets of different lengths:
You’ll need the sockets to get bolts loose, and having a couple of different options is nice because it gives you what you need when you need it. If you don’t have two different length sockets, you can find a way around this, but having options made this install much easier on me.
Start by putting your car into first gear and blocking the front tires. Remember that with the rear of the car in the air, the parking brake will do NOTHING to prevent your car from rolling.
Get the rear of the car off the ground, and then locate the rear sway bar.
Because you have the progress sway right in front of you, you already know what you're looking for, but here's a picture (of the progress sway on the underside...)
You’re probably going to want to hose down these bolts with WD-40 and let it sit for a few minutes. If you trace the path of the sway bar across the frame, you’ll find the mounting points, spray those down with WD-40 as well.
Once you’ve let that sit for a while, you’ll want to remove the sway bar. You can either remove the sway WITH the endlinks, and then fight to get it back on, or leave the endlinks on the car. In order to remove the sway bar:
Loosen one of the end link bolts with your torque wrench, it's easier to start that way.
Once it is loose you’ll probably notice that it just spins freely and the bolt isn’t getting any closer to coming off. In order to get it the rest of the way off, take your alan wrench, in put it in the hole at the end of the bolt, like this:
Then use your open-ended wrench to continue loosening it. You’ll have to hang onto that alan wrench (or find a spot where the frame or suspension holds it for you…) gloves are recommended.
In that picture I’ve got the alan wrench and open ended wrench on the lower endlink bolt- I actually changed my mind and removed the upper one (so that the endlinks remained on the car), but you get the idea.
Once you get the nuts off the endlinks on both sides of the car, start on the mounting bolts. Torque wrench is recommended. When you get them all loose, be careful of the sway as it can swing down on you.
Now that you’ve got the stock sway off, it’s time to put our new one on! Get the bushings and mounting brackets onto the progress bar so that it essentially looks just like the one you took off, and then get back under the car!
Loosely tighten the mounting bolts down, get your end links back on the sway and the bolts on. Tighten everything down evenly- I don’t know for sure if you have to, but I made sure that the sway bar was nice and centered.
Use your torque wrench and torque everything back down to somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 ftlbs.
Oh, and by the way- make sure that the sway bar's bends are pointing downwards- Here’s a good picture of how NOT to put the sway bar on. Seems self-explanatory, but you never do know…
SWAY BAR INSTALLED INCORRECTLY:
And you’re done! Take it out and enjoy the new handling sensation you’ve created.
I feel it necessary to add that several people have had some issues with the sway bar tearing out at the end link connection points. Redshift motorsports makes reinforcing brackets to prevent this from happening. More info can be found in
this thread.
Enjoy!
One other thing- if you start to notice some creaking from the rear sway, grab some spray on lithium grease from your local autoparts store. it'll fix that problem right up.