Sway bar end link stuck

[fedisrico]

2001 540i, the front driver’s side came out with no problem and new one installed easily. The front passenger side however was very hard to remove the nuts and when I did, the bolts won’t slide out, I’ve hammered, pried, pb blaster, but it won’t budge. I jacked up the bottom of th end link to see if there was play and there was, but I couldn’t pull out the bottom because the jack was there.

They are not in straight, and there’s zero play when I try to move them by hand.

Is there something else I need to jack up? The drivers side is on the ground, only the front passenger side is jacked up rn. Or should I keep hammering and prying? I don’t want to break the hole it goes into

[WBAD530i]

Remove the bolts that hold the sway bar bushing so you can move the sway bar and remove end link. Use some elbow grease on it.

[Mannyf540]

PB Blaster goes a long way for loosening stubborn bolts

[fedisrico]

So nothing has to be jacked up? Because when I did the driver’s side the whole front end was on jacks

[JimLev]

Jack up the whole front of the car.

[PostChris909]

Some say to torch things is bad. In some cases it is, but it could help. Only concern and red light about that is that to my understanding the front subframe is alluminum. Alluminum is known to be the trickiest of the metals to weld being that it has such a particular melting and cooling point. If you plan to replace these links it could be worth a shot to torch it (BUT CONSIDERABLY: *SIDE TO SIDE MOVEMENTS* NOTHING DIRECT!!) If you choose to do so be very careful to not be so direct with any surround alluminum

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[fedisrico]

Jack up the whole front of the car.

This was the solution

[geargrinder]

Yeah. This should educate you on how swaybars work. They are basically torsion springs that resist any difference in deflection between left and right. If both wheels hit the exact same bump (ex: a 'perfect' speed bump) the sway bars will have zero loading and zero impact to the suspension. However if one side hits a bump and the other doesn't, the swaybar will transmit some of that deflection to the other side.... in effect swaybars "de-independent" the suspension to some degree.

So by jacking one side and not the other, you were very definitely tensioning the swaybar exactly as it is supposed to operate.

FWIW, when sitting level, the swaybar should always be 100% unloaded. That's what adjustable links are for - to ensure that there's no static loading due to minor ride height differences between left and right.