Hey everyone,
I made a startling discovery today
That's the left side arm and endlink. As you can tell from the condition of the break, it's apparently been like that for some time, and obviously I didn't hear it go.
After I inspected the break a little more closely, I believe that increased stress in the bracket from the Progress swaybar causing a hairline break to form, which only went downhill from there. It's not very easy to see from the pictures above, but after looking at the piece that came off with the endlink, I could tell that the first crack started on the outboard (towards the wheel) side of the car, migrated around, and finally split the inboard side.
Fortunately, I was able to fix it. I welded the piece back in with a MIG, ground it flat again, and welded heavy gauge 5/16" washers on BOTH sides. After grinding them flat as well, I drilled the hole back out to 10mm and painted it black. I also did the right side, so that they are both equally reinforced.
So now I have the problem fixed, and the bracket has now been heavily reinforced, so this should prevent it from happening again--although I can't say for sure at this point...
Also, I will be switching out the stock endlinks (hopefully tomorrow) for the Corsport V2 ones, so those components will be upgraded as well.
I just thought I'd make everybody with aftermarket sways aware of this potential problem, and to let you know that it is fixable/preventable
Jason