How to Replace Front Sway Bar Links 2004-07 GMC Envoy

Okay, friends, one of the first things we need to do to start this job is to safely raise and support the vehicle. I like to raise it directly on the frame. Once you have the wheel off the ground, we're going to remove our center cover. That exposes our 19-millimeter lug nuts. Remove them all and then remove the wheel. Okay. So we took the wheel off so we have a nice, clear view of the sway bar link here. You don't necessarily have to, but it makes it easier to see. What you're going to need is a 7-millimeter Allen head. I'm going to come right in here and I'm just going to give it a couple of nice bonks. Now we're going to take our 21-millimeter wrench, put it right over this nut. The next thing we're going to do is use a ratchet or an air gun, whatever you have, put it on here. And when we turn this, we actually want to try to turn it so we're tightening. It's going to sound weird, but essentially we want the ratchet so it's tightening and the wrench so it's turning to the left. We'll break that free and then we'll go like this, and what you'll notice is it starts loosening up. Remove that completely. There we go. Do the same to the top.

Okay. I'll get my tool off of here. There we are, friends. Once you've compared the new sway bar link to your old sway bar link, it's going to be time for the install. You're going to notice your new sway bar link came with some nice new washers. Those washers are going to go on before you install. Slide them right in, and they're going to go up against this nutted area. Start it in the control arm, and then I'll put it in the sway bar. I'm just going to get this bent down. Slide it right in there. Perfect. We've got our two nuts here. Start them both on. Now it's going to be time to tighten these up. To get onto that nut that's on the inside there, use your 17-millimeter wrench. Now I'm going to use a 21-millimeter and I'm going to snug this up. All right. That bottomed out. Do the same to the other one and then we'll torque them down. Now we're going to torque these to 107 foot-pounds.

It's always a great idea to double-check everything that you removed and replaced. Just make sure everything's secure and good to go. Once you've done that, let's go ahead and get the wheel up on here. Bring the vehicle down so the tire is just barely touching the ground, so it can't spin. And then torque the wheels in a criss-cross manner to 103 foot-pounds. Now it's going to be time to get our center cover on here. If you were to turn it around, you might see something that looks a lot like a valve stem. Line it up with your valve stem and then go ahead and pop it on there.