Sway bar end links

Good evening fellow TacomaWorld members,

Over the last few days, I've noticed a thumping in my floorboard when hitting bumps in the road. I think I have it narrowed down to the passenger side sway bar end link being loose. I crawled under the truck to try and tighten it up but instead of the nut tightening down, the part that the nut screws on would just spin with me wrenching on it. How the heck to I keep it from doing that?

 

There should be an allen wrench sized hole on the other side. Put an allen wrench in there, hold it still and you can tighten the nut on the other side. Make SURE you fix it. I had one come loose and it ripped my CV boot all to hell.

 

If there is no allen wrench hole, I have used a c-clamp, or channel locks to hold it tight. Need to be careful here, as you could rip the boot.

 

That's what I was thinking but I felt the back side and there was no hole. Where would you use the channel lock? Safe on the boot?

 

First of all, make sure the hole is not just caked with mud.

I take the channel locks and put one jaw behind the end link and the other on the spindle and squeeze. This usually isolates the whole deal so you can tighten the nut. Again, gotta be careful with this redneck method.

Another option is to try an impact - might move it fast enough to tighten it before it spins.

 

NOt the bakside...I am an idiot. The hole is on the end of the bolt...duh

 

You are the man! And I'm the idiot...as soon as I saw our photo I realized I saw a similar hole and even thought to myself "gee, I wonder if I can hold on to it with a screwdriver". I just crawled under the truck and it worked like a charm. I'll need to take the tire off to make sure it's torqued to spec but it's as tight as I could get it now.

Thanks @ecgreen !!!

 

See, it only takes two knuckleheads to fix a sway bar link!

 

Could this be due to worn out sway bar links?

I seem to have the same noise and can't for the life of me narrow it down. Steering tie rods are solid, and not loose. Replaced LCA's with moog. (Kinda preventative too.)

My sway bar links are not tight, similar to a bad steering tie rod with leads me to believe this. The only other thing in the front end I haven't checked are the Coil-Overs and the Uni-Balls.

 

Could be any of those things. If you think the sway bar links are to blame, you could take the entire sway bar off, take it for a drive, and see if the sound goes away. DO NOT drive with the links off and the sway bar still on, it will rotate down and break something.