I replaced my swaybar endlinks this past weekend and snapped a few photos along the way. Use at your own risk, this job can easily become more complicated. I expected to use steel cutting tools on this job.

Endlinks typically are badly corroded, so there's little hope of just unscrewing the nuts, but it's always worth a try....

First off, got the entire front end on jack stands and both wheels off (which is important to keep the links unloaded) and I sprayed the threads with PB blaster, my aim is deadly...


Then cleaned the threads with a rethreading nut


These links had a hex socket for an allen wrench to hold the stud while the nut is turned. I used an offset wrench here, but a straight wrench would have worked as well. Either way, there is little to no room, so it's 1/8 turn at a time which is painful. Maybe a shorter wrench would have worked better.


It was very easy to strip out the hex socket in the stud, so I had to back off a few times to respray the threads so it wouldn't be too hard to turn, but finally ended up with success....this time...1 out of 4 aint bad


Then it was onto the upper nut



Fubar!! Nut stripped on the stud and was going nowhere...had to resort to the recip saw. Bosch heavy duty metal cutting blade required to cut through this hardened steel. Eye and ear protection in place...



There is no room to get up in there, so the options are very limited. I chose this angle and had to be extremely careful I didn't cut the LCA, bracket, fork, inner tie rod boot, or anything else in that area. fyi, on the other side of the car both upper and lower nuts on the link stripped out. On the bottom bolt there's NO angle to cut with the recip unless the car was up on a lift, so I used a 300 series plug in dremel with a reinforced cutoff wheel and a flex shaft attachment. I would not have been able to get the job done without it.


Success



Then the link assembly came right out with minor persuasion. Here's a look inside the old ripped boot...the stud slopped around easily by hand.....the likely reason I heard clanging every time I went over a bump.


Got the new links fit into the swaybar/LCA fairly easily. Found the trick was to have both the left and right links off so the entire sway bar could swivel to get them in. I adjusted the new studs to angles as needed.



The civic bible (the helms manual) says to put load on the LCA before fully tightening the new links, so I did by jacking up the LCA.



Car handles a ton better just from these links, and I dont hear rattling over every bump anymore. As always, bought my parts from Honda Parts at HondaPartsDeals.com: Honda Accessory, Honda Car Parts, Honda Auto Parts, Honda Accord Parts

If I was able to unscrew all 4 nuts this would have been a 30 minute job. Due to cutting, its winded up a painful 3+ hours. Honda wanted about $375 to do this job so I still think it was worth doing it myself.

 

Good writeup. You're doing it right with the pictures.

 

One last thought, it's a good idea to go back after a trip around the block to recheck the tightness on the link bolts. Once everything shifts into place they may loosen slightly. You can get to them by simply turning the wheel this....