Turns out my new Pfadt swaybars have their older chinese-made heim-jointed enlinks (they now come with teflon lined upgraded units). I'd rather not have a clinking/clanking car so I'm considering upgrading them via Pfadt or LGM.

But I've been trying to learn/research what actually makes them clink. Some things say that cheaper ones have too much play in the bearing and it actually moves around in the race.

Or... looking at them if you move the threaded stud as far as it will go in any direction so that it hits the bearing race it will make a "clink". Is the noise from this happening? If that's the case then is it more critical to install the enlinks oriented so that the brearing is in the center of it's movement area when installed?

-Brian

 

Yes. The heim joints shouldn't be able to move into the range of motion where they will bind, and will ideally start out in the center of their range.

Cheaper ones will move around in the race, yes. When good ones do that, it's time to replace them. If they're that worn, it's possible for the spherical to pop out of the race and that isn't a good thing. I would really, really doubt you're actually hearing that though because that shouldn't make much noise unless it's really, really sloppy and under load... So it's possible that they're getting articulated out of their range of motion, but other than that I'm not convinced that's where the noise is coming from.

 

Post a picture of the installed endlinks. I'm thinking the noise could be from somewhere else. What else did you change?

 

I actually have that problem on my car. I bought a set of cheap spherical ends and now I have a clanking noise in my rear suspension. This just havppened after taking it to VIR once and the car sat for 2 months. Im either going with aurora or QA1 ends this summer.

 

Yeah I ordered my rod ends from Pegasus Racing, they keep a lot of their Aurora products in stock. I assume you most likely will not need that nice of a rod end for your sway bars so I'd check out:

http://www.midwestcontrol.com/

They make many different types of rod ends and will most likely have an extremely cost effective upgrade for your application. Especially since you probably have standard rod ends. My metric ones forced me to dump wayyyy too much money in them.

 

Stephen is the man on this subject. So my ends sqeek like crazy stephen. Three more month until I start what we been talking about. can't wait!!!

 

I am excited too Danny! I am sure Fabric8 knows more about almost everything then me...he definitely knows more then I do about rod ends though, haha!

I am sure he would agree that even if that is not the source of your squeaking that you should definitely replace your chinese heim joints with some higher quality pieces!

 

I like Aurora products, they're not that expensive and they're really nice. Even Chinese rod ends should last a little while, they don't have the precision or the hardness to last a long time, but they'll work short term.

Oh, make sure that there is proper spacing on either side of the spherical, or the range of angular motion can become really limited. Spacers on either side are a good idea if they aren't already extended-type rod ends. There really isn't any other way to properly fasten the rod ends while keeping everything tight in single shear. And an oversized safety washer isn't a bad idea either if you're in single shear.

If they're squeaking, there are two solutions. Either grease them, or get Teflon lined/coated rod ends. Dry uncoated rod ends tend to squeak just like everything else that makes polished metal to metal contact.