I'm slowly working on various car projects, and am starting the replacing-sagging-rear-springs project, but already stuck on the removing the rear sway bar. It's slow progress today...

I've done some searching and find plenty of information on installing sway bars, but can't find anything about actually removing them. The factory manual says "force the stabilizer shackle off the ball stud ... with the aid of a tire iron." Is there a trick or proper method to actually removing these?

Any help would be awesome.

You have to use two big screwdrivers or pry tools and pop them off. They will be hard to pop off, finding something to pry against with enough force is the hard part.

You could try to soften them up a bit with a heat gun.

I like using heat. Heat gun if the paint is still in good shape. Torch if you want to get them off quickly and you are restoring parts. Once it starts smoking a bit, it will pry off easily.

If your trying to pop off the drop links from the sway bar, I use a big open end wrench to pry it off. To put it back on I use huge channel locks.

One 23mm open ended wrench and very little force fixes the day and no more problems. Thanks!

The bushings are nylon, so heat is your friend. In both removal and installation.