Tercel89

I have a noise in my 2000 Protege . When i go over a bump , even little bumps i get this clunking sound . I got under my car and grabbed the front sway bar abd tryied to jiggle it and i do feel and hear a little bit of losseness in the end-link- joint . But man when i am driving it sounds really loud. Could this be the problem? I have read before that this does happena bit with 3rd generation Proteges .

_Kansei_

Yeah if the front sway makes noise when you jiggle it, it's probably the same thing. There are much higher forces involved when actually driving hence it's a lot louder.

You can get new endlinks from www.onlinemazdaparts.com (you can e-mail them or call them for the part numbers)

Tercel89

hey thanks a bunch Kansei. Is this a regular problem with the Protege's? I hear it is from some . I have only had Toyotas before this one but my wife really wanted it so i got it . Boy it has been an excellent car ! The only other car i can compare it to is my 1989 Toyota Tercel . It is a tank and reliable as heck. So is my Tacoma , but if this sway bar end link is the only thing i have to worry about in 141,000 miles then i am very happy . I did my timing belt change last summer and i did it myself . It was a lot of work , lifting out the engine and all but i love this car!!! Thanks for your help.

_Kansei_

Yeah it's pretty regular. They can seize up, it happens a lot more for people in the north though as it all rusts.

I've changed my timing belt twice, both times with the engine in the car. Honestly it doesn't sound like a bad idea to take it out though, saves a lot of bloody knuckles and such from the tight quarters. They really left no room there at all. You should have done the water pump while you had the timing belt off and the engine out. I haven't heard of them dying on people from high mileage but most people get it done when the timing belt is off. I'm still on my original but I'm only at 94000 miles (on a car manufactured june 2002.. so pretty normal yearly mileage).. I plan on replacing it in the spring.

I agree that these cars are really easy to live with, I love mine. The only troubles I've ever had with the car were directly related to work I did on the car, modifications and such. The sway bar endlink thing is pretty minimal.

One thing though.. if you do have a sway bar endlink clunk (it could be a sway bar bushing clunk and not the endlink.. try to grab on and wiggle the endlink if you can), the endlink will probably protest being removed. To remove it you stick an allen wrench in the middle and a wrench on the outside (a pipe fitting wrench would work better than an open-ended for this) --but this seizes up and doesn't always work, in which case you have to use an impact wrench or a torch or something to get them off.

If it is a front sway bar bushing, don't let the cheap price and seemingly simple job fool you, take it to the dealership. I've done all the work on my car myself (turbo kit , cams, and all) but I will never attempt that ever again. You have to drop the front subframe, which requires the steering linkage to be disconnected and dropped, shifter rods, exhaust midpipe, the works.. a dealership will likely charge you over 6 hours of labor for that 5 dollar part. it's unfortunate

Tercel89

all that work to just get off the front two end-links? I got under the car and did a quick lokk but not that thorough of a look and it looked pretty simple to get off.

_Kansei_

To get the enlinks off you just need the wheels off. I was talking about the sway bar bushings and brackets that mount it to the chassis.