Hi Everybody!
I have a 1995 Protege and i would like some helpful comments from people who have replaced, or are familiar with changing the front sway bar bushings on that car.
I have a loud thump coming from the front driver's side wheel. I suspect it's the sway bar bushing. And even if it's not, i still would like to change those bushings, because when you jack up the car and look at the bushing, you can see a gap. So it's not tightly pressing around the sway bar.

But my problem is getting that half-a-ring clamp off that is held down by two bolts. I can get the one bolt off, but the second one i have no access to, because it's on the other side of the clamp very close to the firewall or the car's body, whatever you wanna call it. There simply is no room to put your socket wrench on it. On most cars it is so easi to change those bushings, but on a Protege it seems impossible. And that's the only way you can get to it. There is no way of getting to it from under the car or from a side somwhere.
So, please, if anyone is familiar with changing those bushings, let me know.
Thank you

 

To get those rear bolts out you need to remove or at least lower the entire engine/trans subframe w/ steering rack to get access. Make sure to disconnect the steering shaft or it will be damaged if subframe is dropped more than an inch or so. On some applications it is not necessary to completely remove the rear bolts as they use slots in the bracket and not holes like the pic below. Not a job I would want to tackle in the driveway!!! Second pic is the diagram in the shop manual about the order things need to be removed.

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[IMG]local://upfiles/1377/7B1D7349F6A84B9584152726511B223B.gif[/IMG]

 

Thank you for your thorough reply. Seems like an awful lot of work to change a bushing. Since on most cars changing sway bar bushings is relatively easy, then i would call that extremely bad engineering from Mazda....(sigh).
I just don't see why they couldn't have positioned that sway bar just one inch towards the front, or made some more space into the firewall to at least fit a socket wrench on it.
What i am wondering now is has ANYONE gone trough all that trouble on their 2 gen. Proteges just to change a sway bar bushing.

 

Have replaced probably every front and rear sway bar to body bushings on every MP3 and Speed Protege in my area. If the rears didn't clunk then the front ones creaked badly. Of course the speed had much stiffer sway bars so were harder on the bushings.
Have not run across many regualar Protege with bad bushings. Usually it is the outer links that wear out and make clilcking/clunky type noise over bumps. Would maybe not hurt to disconnect the sway bar from the outer link and make sure there is not any looseness or play in them first. If they do feel tight then leave disconnected and position the sway bar out of the way so it does not hit anything and test drive to see if the clunk is gone. If is still there then is not the inner bushings.

 

I wanted to do that actually because when i took the wheel off and checked the sway bar bushing i noticed the bushing wasn't tightly around the sway bar, but there was a space i could see trough. So, i also had the idea of loosening the outer link and then shaking the sway bar to see how much play there actually was, but i couldn't get the outer link off because when i wanted to get that nut that holds the outer link to the sway bar off, then the whole thing started turning - the nut with that bolt with threads it sits on, so i left it at that.

I actually have a bad cv joint. There is no clacking sound when i turn the wheels and give it some gas, but the rubber boot is completely shot and there is a pretty big gap and loud clunk when i shake the whole drive shaft axle. So i'm hoping that all that thumping sound is caused by that bad cv joint and not by the sway bar bushing. Anyway, i'm gonna find out tomorrow because i'm taking my car to have the drive shaft replaced.

 

yep, i checked and my sway bar bushings are bad. The outer links are okay, but the sway bar moves back and forth when moved because the bushings are not tight enough around it. Oh well, i guess i'm f...ed, because i simply do not have enough funds to have some repair shop lower the subframe and disconnect the whole steering system just to replace two pieces of rubber...

 

I was thinking that if you were to cut a hole into the firewall from the inside, then you would be able to put a socket wrench on the back bolt from the inside and also from the outside. Has anyone ever done it that way?