Sway bar threads stripped....

[Stanza]

So tonight I decided to address the wobbly control arm, and as I'm taking things apart, I notice that the sway bar threads look awfully flat under all the rust. After wirebrushing, and backing the nut off to remove the control arm, I find that yep, the threads on the sway bar are smeared, as is the retaining nut. I eventually get the control arm mounted, and it's time to compress the sway bar bushings. A new nut will not grab on properly, and the smeared nut takes all my arms to tighten it back down. It goes down far enough and tight enough to expose the cotter pin hole, and as of now, it's all back together. But knowing that the nut is holding on to a smeared surface has me paranoid. Should I be paranoid? Not sure what to do about it just yet. Replacement sway bar? Try to retap the threads? grind it smooth, and retap one size smaller?

[ricko1966]

I had one like that, didn't bring it up yo whoever was asking about there car acting funny yesterday, because I really thought this couldn't happen to anyone but me. I went around a corner going to fast a bump in the right spot and who knows what else but bang the nut came off the wheel pinned against the back of the wheel well and 50 miles from home.I gathered up the pieces off the ground walked to a hardware store bought a die a little smaller than my old nut it was american,don't remember the size screwed the die down no grinding or anything put everything back to gether with one odd american nut on it.It's had at least one more set of bushings run on it since,no problem.