Removing front sway bar brackets and bushings., What's the secret? Options

[nynone4]

I'm replacing the stock front sway bar on the six, and was wondering:

Is there a trick to removing the outer triangular plate and corresponding rubber bushing to get the original bar out of the car? It seems like the rubber bushing will not slide over the square end pieces of the bar without the proper combination of swear words. Anyone know the combination?

The car is freshly painted, so I've been a little hesitant to get too "enthusiastic" with removing it yet. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/smash.gif)

Thanks in advance for any help!

[davep]

I'm with Jeff on this. The covers are bolted onto the body. In fact, the inner nut plates are supposed to be welded to the body with four holes cut in the body for the bolts and swaybar to go through. I thought the rubber bushings were split to begin with. Factory ones are I'm pretty sure.

One removes the 3 bolts, then pops the cover off of the bushing, and finally splits the bushing to remove it from the bar.