[evilspoons]

Hello everyone... I've got my car in at the shop to diagnose a 'clunk' in the front suspension and some really nasty behaviour in terms of tracking on the road and being jittery through turns.

My mechanic tells me that when disconnecting the sway bar links, he cannot reproduce the clunk in any way, but with the links back on, he can get the clunk to happen almost constantly. This leads him to the bushings retaining the front anti-sway bar in the brackets onto the subframe. He tells me they are vulcanized to the anti-sway bar and cannot be replaced (to his knowledge, he emphasized) without replacing the entire anti-sway bar!



Has anyone managed to replace these on the stock bar, or do I need an entirely new stock bar?

What's the deal with Tasca listing three different parts for the same thing? (See here)... does anyone know which of the three ('green x', 'blue 4', 'white 2/3') a 2005 S60R would need anyway? The actual bar is black, not green, blue or white.

(I really should've just bought the IPd track spec set when they were on sale, but I have the neutral spec and don't really want to throw out my replacement rear bar in order to buy the upgraded front+rear kit. I also don't want to spend the $450 right now when the Tasca front bar is like $120...).

 

[bpray9223]

You are correct, the bushings are indeed vulcanized to the sway bar, so it would be rather difficult to remove them unless you had some time along with a torch and knife/razor.

The "green" "blue" notation Volvo uses corresponds to a certain size of the sway bar. If I remember correctly (at least on the FWD S60/V70's) the "blue" denotes the sport 24mm front sway bar, and there is actually a blue painting spot on the sway bar.

 

[djkronik57]

Are you sure it's not the sway bar links themselves? They are notorious for failing and making a clunking rattle.

 

[evilspoons]

Are you sure it's not the sway bar links themselves? They are notorious for failing and making a clunking rattle.

Yeah, both of them were changed recently. My mechanic got the sway bar itself to make a horrible noise by taking off the end links and yanking on the bar.

Incidentally, I sorted out the "green x" vs "blue 4" and "white 2/3" business for the part numbers. There's an inspection plate inside your engine bay on the driver's side that has a long string of letters/numbers near the bottom. On a S60R, the fifth one in will be a 2, a 3, a 4, or an X. This corresponds with the description in each separate part number for the front anti-sway bar. There's also supposedly a coloured spot on the bar itself, but I have no idea where that's gone, since my entire bar looks black.

My car had an X on the inspection plate, which gives me part number 9492039.

 

[bpray9223]

There's also supposedly a coloured spot on the bar itself, but I have no idea where that's gone, since my entire bar looks black.

There is; it may be on top of the bar by the steering rack where you can't see.