I decided to repair everything today and since I replaced one side's sway bar endlink, I decided why not the other. Got that done in about 5 minutes. I then went to the driver's side to strip the frayed wires and rewrap them in quality electrical tape. Again, this only took about 5 minutes and I was ready to attack the LCA bolts. Based on advice of Dane150 (NECO member), I decided to remove the center bolts from the front & rear roll restrictors and drop only the front two bolts of the subframe and simply drop the front about 5 inches. So, I remove the driver's side front subframe bolt about 5 turns and decided to go to the passenger's side to allow the front to drop evenly. Here is what I found:



The condition of the car never ceases to amaze me! The bolt was completely missing

Needless to say, I think the clunking was more than just a sway bar end link being loose ... DAMN GOOD THING I bought that other front subframe. The bolts that hold down the power steering rack are the same thread pitch and length ... THANK GOD!

Here is a picture of the finished product before rebolting the front back up. The entire process took maybe 35 minutes ... went a hell of a lot quicker than I thought it would.



Test drove the car after getting everything back together and WOW, this thing can really handle now! However, the CEL came on and the driver's door rattles when I close it, so back out I go ...

For Sale: 1997 Explorer XLT V8 AWD