HOW TO CHANGE YOUR DROP LINKS (OR ANTI ROLL BAR LINKS) IN 30MINS

Well first of all you, do you need to change them? What’s the symptoms?
A kind of irritating rattle over rough surfaces but no noise at all on smooth surfaces. Always there but doesn’t seem to get worse


NB A track rod end (or tie rod end) is a very similar noise but that’s felt much more through the steering, is much louder, gets progressively worse and can give you torque steering (altering course on power off/on) even on smaller engines.
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This is a track rod end or tie rod end, we're not dealing with this today



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Anyway, here are the drop links and they’re just held in at each end by a self locking nut. The only problem is stopping the screw from turning whilst you remove the nut that’s been there for a few years. New nuts don't come with the links and it's worth putting on new ones. Not cheap though at £1.50 each

Do the usual stuff of jacking up, remove the wheel and use an axle stand. As soon as you get the wheel off use some oil or penetrating oil on the links screw threads, if nothing else, then you have done everything to make the fight easier.

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In the centre of the screw thread is an allen slot so you can restrain the screw whilst turning the self locking but don’t even think of using normal allen keys to hold it. Worth noting that if you have an impact driver, one of the sockets in my set fits beautifully so you can restrain the screw whilst turning the nut on the top link

Do the top one first and, if you’re lucky you can probably get the nut off with not too much messing about. If the nut starts to get tight then stop, don’t just carry on, screw it back in again a bit to work the crud off the thread because once that allen slot rounds off you will have to resort to plan B. and B stands for Butchery!


Now access to the bottom link is much more restricted and you can try to hold the allen key slot or you can just go straight for Plan B. The problem is you need to be able to get hold of and stop the screw from turning.

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Bend the link arm back from the top out of the way, it’s not very strong at all, you can bend it with your fingers. You can also raise the drop link arm by putting a bar in and levering it up a bit from the bottom triangular widhbone arm. You'd be wise to pull out the sensor cable that's in the area out from its holdings and put it out of harms way

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Now for some butchery! With a medium sized, sharp flat blade screwdriver just stab right through the rod end rubber gaiter and twist bits of rubber off so you can get to the end of the ball joint.

In no time you will find a couple of thin retaining spring bands which hold the gaiter on and just lever these out and away.
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Here you can see them still on the link arm
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Now you have access to a nice round but useable surface to clamp a mole wrench onto tightly and off you go and remove the nut easily on the other end

If you’re careful you can use the same method of holding one side with a mole wrench whilst you tighten the nut on the new lower drop link but be careful not to damage the gaiter of course

For the top link then you can use the allen key easily on this new one to help restrain whilst you tighten the nut. Clip the brake pad wear sensor cable back in and the job's done
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Oh, and in case you hadn’t sussed it. This little gadget in the Stilo tool kit is to help you put your wheels back on.
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Easy to line up and hang the wheel on. Saves a lot of puffing and panting