Whiteline Rear Sway Bar install - creaking

[chris12]

I installed a Whiteline Rear Sway Bar yesterday with AVO hd mounts, went for a spin today. The bar creaks on both the left and right sides when going over speed humps, up into the driveway, etc.

Now, the packing said grease free technology, so I assume I don't have to use grease for the bushings?

Does anyone know of what the problem might be?

I'm going to go over it and give it a general tighten, but I'm not sure what I've done wrong.

[zch91]

Do you have lateral locks fitted?

Mine (BSR39Z) came with a packet of grease so definitely not grease free haha

[chris12]

Do you have lateral locks fitted?

Mine (BSR39Z) came with a packet of grease so definitely not grease free haha

Mine is BSR39Z too, but directly under that it says grease free technology and then again on the bushings packet. And, it didn't come with grease.

I do have the lateral locks fitted, but it didn't seem like a lateral sound (around round-abouts for example).

[senator]

welcome to Whiteline, get used to it.

does it make a slight knocking sounds around corners???

[sheppo9]

Mine (BSR39Z) came with a packet of grease so definitely not grease free haha

The new ones are grease free.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQzVKNHSqiU

[BillyCorgi]

Recently I installed a new rear sway bar.
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=24407
After a day or two a rattle started up in the rear.
Went under the back and started tapping away on the sway bar until I found a hollow ringing sound.
Located it to a loose nut on the right hand side sway bar link.
Went back under the car with the torque wrench and retightened everything back to manufacturer's specs.
Found that nearly all fasteners had come looser than when first installed.

Your stiffer rear bar is going to put more stress on everything it connects to.

By the way, no noises since then, only blissful fun driving!

[Corsair]

Grease it anyway for peace of mind/ears.

[Shaheenis]

OP is this fixed? I fitted a front Whiteline swaybar recently with lateral locks which need to be adjusted after settling. I heard a very occasional clunk/creak from the bar prior to adjusting the locks and figured it was related. Several weeks later after adjusting I have started getting a lot more noise from the bar for no apparent reason. Lateral locks are where they should be. Bar is making no contact with anything and at Goodyear today they did a cursory check of the end links (my smacking the bar and expecting them to make a noise) as apparently they can cause noise when a heavier bar is fitted. They said they were actually pretty good. So no explanation other than the bar itself is making the creaking noise. I used the Whiteline grease as instructed on all contact surfaces.

I have had this same issue on my old Gen1 wagon which I had forgotten about. Never heard a peep from a rear bar, just the front. Does anyone have a theory on what is actually producing the noise?

[chris12]

Hey Tim,

Mine is supposed to be a grease free bar, so initially (first day or two) I had no grease on it, because that's what it said on the damn packet.

I added some grease to the bushings and it's solved the problem. The grease wasn't Whiteline grease, it was this red looking grease (can't remember the name), but I applied it quite liberally to the bushings.

[Shaheenis]

Thanks Chris, mine has been on less than 2000ks and was greased at install so if it is a grease problem I should throw it in the bin now . The factory bar was on there for 120K with original bushes and no grease and never made a creak once.

[gen3v8]

Got a set of Cusco bars from Michael (G88) and he made sure I understood, NO GREASE.

[Shaheenis]

Interesting, I wonder why this advice is different between bars. Did you ask him why no grease?

[gen3v8]

Interesting, I wonder why this advice is different between bars. Did you ask him why no grease?

It causes them to fail early