986 - Front Sway Bar Bushing Bolt snapped

[Zzorro]

I wanted to change out the front sway bar bushings. This was the last task on my complete suspension overhaul.

Rookie mistake. I should have PB - blasted these coated bolts before trying to take them out. In my defence, none of the other bolts in the entire suspension replacement had this issue! All came out with reasonable but not ridiculous effort. But serves me right I guess. 1 of the 4 bolts ended up snapping in the mount.

I don't need advise on getting the bolt out. I'm pretty sure I can figure that part out.

My question is, has this ever happened to anyone's else? Is it common for suspension bolts to snap? I'm thinking that the PO swapped these bushings out at one time and overtourqued just this one bolt? Or perhaps I've been really lucky that this is the only bolt that snapped.

Appreciate the feedback.

[pilot4fn]

I chanaged front and rear sway bar bushings on my 2001 Boxster and all bolts came out nicely. I do not know if those bushings had been changed by PO, but the old bushings did look pretty much shot.

[Quadcammer]

I had no issues and my bolts showed no corrosion. They are M10 bolts as I recall, and are smaller than adjacent bolts, so wouldn't surprise me if someone reefed on it by mistake.

[jaykay]

No issues with rear... have never touched the front bar.

IIRC the rear bolt holes are not blind in that one can drip/soak PB blaster or similar down the back side of the threads to free them up before removal

[Zzorro]

Thanks all. Sounds to me like the PO must have over tightened this one. And I could have helped myself by using a little PB Blaster and some common sense (there is no way it should have taken that much force to undo that bolt). A little humbled, but happy it's something minor. Again, thanks for the feedback.