Sway Bar Link Bushings for 1987 Volkswagen Vanagon Syncro

A sway bar link connects the end of the sway bar to the suspension on your Volkswagen Vanagon, and on plenty of vehicles that link pivots on bushings rather than ball joints. When those bushings wear, the link stops transferring load cleanly and the bar stops doing its job.

Sway bar end link bushings are often replaceable on their own, which means you can refresh the link instead of buying a new one, for a fraction of the cost. You will also see them listed as stabilizer link bushings.

Not Every Volkswagen Vanagon Link Has Bushings You Can Replace

This is the first thing to establish, because it decides whether you are buying bushings or buying links.

Ball jointed links use a sealed socket at each end with a rubber boot over it, looking much like a miniature tie rod end. Nothing inside is serviceable, so when the joint develops play or the boot splits, the entire link gets replaced. This is the most common design on modern cars.

Bushing style links work differently. They use a bushing at one or both ends, either pressed into an eye or stacked over a stud with washers and a nut, and those bushings are a wear item you can replace on their own. Threaded rod links, eye style links, and many truck and older vehicle designs all fall into this group. If you can see rubber compressed between two washers, or a bushing pressed into a ring at the end of the link, the bushings are serviceable.

Some links mix the two, with a ball joint at one end and a bushing at the other, in which case the bushing end can be refreshed while the joint determines the life of the link overall.

Whatever the Link Absorbs, the Bar Never Gets

The sway bar only resists roll if load reaches its ends, and the link is the only path that load can take.

Each bushing has to let the link pivot as the suspension travels while still passing load through without giving way. Those two requirements pull against each other, and the compromise decides how the bar feels. Too soft and the input arrives late and reduced. Too hard and the link binds as the suspension articulates.

Once the bushings wear, anything they absorb is load the bar never receives. The bar is still the correct rate and still perfectly intact, and it is only being given part of the input, so your Volkswagen Vanagon rolls further and settles more slowly than it should. That is also why fitting an upgraded sway bar to a car with tired links rarely delivers what people expect, and why the differences between positions on an adjustable bar stop feeling distinct.

Link or Mount? Telling Them Apart on Your Volkswagen Vanagon

Both ends of the bar use bushings, both get called sway bar bushings, and they behave differently when they go.

The mount bushings sit at the center of the car where the bar crosses the chassis, and their signature is a squeak or creak that changes with the weather, showing up on cold mornings and after rain then fading as things dry out.

Sway bar link bushings, or end link bushings, sit out at the ends near the wheels, and they produce a sharper, faster rattle or knock that follows small sharp bumps and is at its most obvious at low speed over broken pavement. Because the links travel through a much larger arc than the bar does, play there shows up as noise sooner than it does at the mounts.

Checking is straightforward. With the car safely supported, take hold of the link and try to move it by hand. Any play at either end means the bushing has gone, and you can usually see the rubber cracked, flattened or squeezed out past its washers at the same time.

Service Kits for Whiteline Volkswagen Vanagon Links

If you are already running Whiteline links, they are built to be rebuilt.

Service kits supply the replacement bushings and hardware for specific link part numbers, so a link that has covered serious miles gets refreshed rather than thrown away. The link body, the threaded adjustment and whatever length you set stay exactly as they are, and only the wear parts change.

Check your link part number against the listings, since the kits are matched to specific links rather than sold universally.

Sizing by Dimension

Link bushings are defined by their dimensions rather than by the vehicle they came from, which makes them straightforward to match if you measure properly.

For a pressed in bushing you need the outside diameter that fits the eye, the inside diameter that takes the bolt or sleeve, and the overall width. For a stacked bushing over a stud you need the hole diameter and the stud diameter it fits around.

Measure the eye or the hole rather than the old bushing, since one that has been cycling for years will have spread at the ends and compressed through the middle and gives you a number that was never correct.

That dimensional approach also covers modified cars and aftermarket links, where a vehicle lookup often returns nothing useful.

Symptoms of Worn Volkswagen Vanagon Link Bushings

• A rattle or knock from the wheel area over small sharp bumps, worst at low speed
• Noise that gets worse on broken pavement and disappears on smooth road
• A knock coming through the steering wheel when turning at low speed
• More body roll in corners with slower settling than the car used to have
• Play you can feel by hand at either end of the link
• Rubber visibly cracked, flattened, split or squeezed out from between its washers
• An adjustable sway bar whose settings no longer feel different from one another

Replacing Link Bushings on Your Volkswagen Vanagon

Stacked bushing links are one of the easiest jobs on the car. The nut comes off, the old bushings and washers come off the stud, and the new stack goes on in the same order. Pay attention to which way the washers face, and resist the urge to keep tightening, because crushing a polyurethane bushing flat removes the compliance it was meant to provide.

Pressed in bushings need a press and a correct diameter tool to avoid damaging the link eye. Check the eye once the old bushing is out, since a bore worn oval will not hold a new one and means the link itself needs replacing.

Install any crush tube or sleeve supplied, because that is what carries clamping load from the bolt and stops the bushing being squeezed when the fastener is torqued.

Grease on assembly with a lubricant made for polyurethane. Silicone and PTFE based greases are correct, while ordinary lithium and petroleum based greases can degrade the material over time.

Torque with the car on its wheels at ride height rather than hanging at full droop, so the bushing sits neutral in the position the suspension actually spends its life in.

Do both sides so the bar behaves the same left to right, and check the mount bushings at the center of the bar while you are underneath. Sway bar links and bushings wear at a similar rate and cause similar complaints, so most people do them together. Sway bar link bushing replacement needs no alignment afterward.

Find Sway Bar Link Bushings for Your Volkswagen Vanagon

Link bushings sit within our bushings lineup, and a sway bar link washer completes the stack.

Select your Volkswagen Vanagon to see the stabilizer bar link bushing and sway bar link bushing kits available for it, or search by bushing size if you are running aftermarket links. If your links use ball joints rather than bushings, complete replacement links are available separately. Every Whiteline component is backed by our warranty, a fitment guarantee and 60 day returns.