I'm in the process of replacing the front shocks and springs in my '96 Grand Cherokee Laredo 6 cyl. As part of this repair I was planning to replace the front stabilizer bar bushings.
I bought a bushing kit and reviewed the procedure in my Haynes shop manual....it looked fairly straight forward.
Step one was to remove the top nut that holds the stabilizer bar upper linkage stack in place. The nut loosened up and backed out ok until it got near the end of the bolt and at that point it began to spin without rethreading any further. After some head scratching, I compared the photos in the manual to what I was actually seeing and realized my stabilizer bar upper linkage is quite different from what's in the manual.
The manual shows a stack that is (starting from the top) as follows:
Nut Metal Retaining Washer Rubber Bushing Eye Hole at the end of the Stabilizer Bar Rubber Bushing Metal Retaining Washer
The upper linkage stack that I actually have is as follows:
Nut Metal Washer Eye Hole at the end of the Stabilizer Bar What appears to be a little rubber boot that is covering a ball joint (when i slide the boot down it appears that it is filled with grease but I can't get it down enough to see what's inside)
It seems that the little ball joint is spinning when I try to threading the top nut off of the bolt. I've tried to get a vise grip pliers into the area between the rubber boot the Eye Hole but I can't get the boot pushed down enough to squeeze the pliers in.
FWIW, the bushing kit I purchased has two bushings and two metal retaining washers per side, just like the photo in my manual.
So. I'm stuck. I can't remove the top nut, nor can I tighten it back down....it just spins.
Can anyone tell me what's going on?
Why is my upper linkage completely different?
And most importantly, What can I do to get the nut tightened down? (I don't have to replace the bushings, I just want to get my jeep back on the road).