Rmgibson

Make sure the shock is not touching the sway bar, you may need to disconnect both sides and drop it down out of the way to get the holes lined up. I struggled for 30 minutes standing on a breaker bar trying to muscle them in only to realize the sway bar was preventing it from lining up properly!

jtranizzle

I'll try this. Is the sway bay easy to reinstall after the strut is in? Never removed the sway bar before

Rmgibson

It's not necessary to take the whole thing off. Just undo both endlinks so you can rotate the bar freely. From your pic it looks like the shock is in contact with the bar so undoing the links and rotating it out of the way should make it possible to line up the bolt on the LCA.

jamesac83

You're doing this with the rear sway bar still connected?

hai1206vn

Here's what I do, works perfectly everytime. You just need a long pipe/rod.
- Disconnect sway bar endlink (just one side)
- Loosen some control arm bolts if you want, but not necessary
- Stick a pipe thru the lower arm, on top of the ball joint, all the way thru so that the far end of the pipe is under the subframe.
- Put some rag between the far end of the pipe and the subframe to prevent scratching.
- Using the subframe as the pivot, press the pipe down on the lower arm. I usually just half sit on the pipe while align the shock bolt.

B serious

Loosen all the control arm bushings. You need to do that to clock them for the new ride height anyway. The suspension will droop without resistance if they're all loose.