Installing a RB front swaybar, the clips for the bushings will not go on, do I need to cut the torsion link bracket to make them fit? It seems there isn't enough clearance without cutting it. I fought with it for awhile and got so pissed I almost kicked the car off the jack stands. The swaybar is alot thicker and will not drop down far enough to even roll the clips onto the bushings, anyone have experience with this? Man I hate working on cars!!!!!!!

 

Give RB a call - they may have sent you the wrong bushings.

 

And you bought a 25 year old Rx7?

 

^Better than a new car!

 

Im with Jeff on that one. Could you post some pictures so we can see whats up? My re-speed bar was a 4 hour install zo i know where youre coming from

 

Here are some photos of my newly beat up swaybar......

 

So you cant get the factory bushing clips over those bushings let alone in the car? The bushings look correct. You could take out the tension rods to give you a little more room as well. Try lubing up the outside of the bushings to slide them in easier

 

The factory clips slide over the bushings fine, but once you try to get the bent end into the slot in the torsion link brackets, I cannot seem to rotate the clip and bushing down far enough to get it in the slot.

 

Can't help with your current problem, but I will advise you to make sure that you do not install the bar upside down. Check where the endlinks attach, and it will be obvious if you've got it wrong.

They used to (probably still do for all I know) install their decal upside down, which led to many a reinstallation and lots of bad words aimed at RB.




.

 

Just hammer it a bit. Mine was a pain as well. It's because the clips are so tight on the bushing, and the new bushing is slightly larger outer perimeter. You end up needing to hammer on the clip a bit to get it into the slot. Then hammer it some more to be able to get the bolt lined up.

Once I finished I said never again!

 

I helped a friend install a set of RB bars back in 2000. He had to trim the bushings and grind some steel out of the... holder things (I don't know suspensions very well). All on the front bar. The rear bar went in kinda funny too.

 

They'll fit you just have to work with them a little. I just put my sway bar back in and it was a little fiddely but I won eventually.

 

I just replaced my sway bar with the ST brand and I feel your pain!

What I did was first to remove the tension bar for more clearance and seriously lube the bushing. There was no way the clip was going to go over the bushing by hand so I used the floor jack and a piece of wood 2x4 and pushed upward on the clip. At this point I attached a c-clamp to hold it in place, removed the floor jack and was able to insert the bolt. Once I tightened the bolt the bushing compressed a lot and fit just fine. It took me about 3 hours to figure this out but then the second side was easy.

Good luck, it is worth it in the end.

 

I just installed mine this winter. I took the brackets out of the car completely, widened that pass through hole so there was no interference, flipped everything upside down and installed it all on the ground then lined it up and bolted it in. The new bushings that RB supplies along with their clips are difficult to install, but not exceedingly so if you do it off the car for better leverage and access. They will require some force.

 

Thanks for all the input, Kentetsu, I thought the same thing when installing it, and yes they still put their sticker upside down and backwards, it sits on the bottom side of the swaybar and you would need a mirror to read it from up top. I called RB and talked with their tech line, they told me that since the bushings come out of a mold that I would have to trim them to fit. Since I installed poly bushings 6 months ago, I took the new RB bushings and trimmed them to match the other poly bushings with a little bit more meat left on them. Hopefully I can install it tonight, I will let ya'll know. Once installed the ends of the swaybar angle in towards the wheel well

 

I called them as well to advise them to correct the position/orientation of the decal when I discovered this close to a decade ago. I even went through the trouble of explaining how it was leading to botched installations. "Yeah, we'll look into that".

I'll stick with a company that remains a part of the community and listens to us rather than put up stuff like that. It almost seems like they feel that they've already done the work, and now can just sit back and fill orders. Meanwhile, others are working hard to offer us further improvements, filling actual requests for new parts, and living on this forum helping members solve problems. No comparison in my book....

 

Racing Beat has gone on to make parts for the Mazda 2, so there you go. lol my dad has one but isn't interested in any aftermarket mufflers just yet.

I've noticed I tend to refer to Racing Beat as "Often Wrong" at times when they make simple mistakes over and over, or just put out bad info like the high volume oil pump was only ever in the GSL-SE and you beehive owning 12A guys need to get one of these precious oil pumps only to realize once you've torn down the front of your engine, that it had the big pump the whole time. I've never done it but I'm sure plenty have. But one of their flubs did set me back about an hour once; for a while their road race headers had the dual pipe flange on the wrong way requiring me to drill out two new 3/8" holes. They looked into it and I guess it's been corrected.

 

I went through the pain of making one of those fit in my 85 recently. I'm not at home right now, but I can post a pic or two when I get back. I ended up having to trim a little to force feed that bar in. I wanted to kick mine too!!!

 

After trimming the bushings it fell right in, Thanks for all the help

 

Bought a used never on a car (bushings were brand new) RB front anti-sway bar and this post alerted me to the installation problem with the bushings. Installed yesterday and when I got to this point it was very clear what everyone was having problems with, I had the same problem.

My solution took less than a minute per side. Take a pair of vice grips and "walk" the clamp in place. Last step I gently tapped once or twice to drive the clip back into final place. Real simple, no trimming, no lubrication used, no fuss. Worked for me.

 

My sway bars arrived last night. The sticker is upside down on mine aswell 😤