well it took a whole bunch longer that it probably should have, but it's done!

got the tierod seperator tool from autozone, and free'd the drivers side tierod end.
put one bolt back in each side of the midpoint bushings, and pried with a big screwdriver to remove the brackets, the bushings came right out... almost in two pieces... rust apparently isnt nice to rubber either. had to jack up the car a bit higher to get the old sway bar out ( i think it was somewhat easier to remove with one side a bit shorter than it shoud have been )

so, on to the new bar. had to raise the car up more still for more room. got it most of theway in, but rubbing a bit on the opposide side cradle rail.... a few whacks of the BFH, and voila! it's in. So i rub some grease on the inside of the midpoint brackets to ease installation, and start both bolts on the drivers side. one goes easy, the other gets hung up.... remove it, try again, nope still not there. must have rust or junk in the threads from the loose rust of the old brackets. so i have to run out and find a tap to fit, as i have no metric taps. stop at the lowes (whole metric tap die kit is $48), the HD (no love at all), and finally the sears hardware -- 14 piece kit for $35. oh well. so i get home, work the tap into the hole (tight squeeze against the lines on the drivers side firewall) so that one goes in fine. alright. put the bracket back on, start that bolt, go to the other one that was fine when i put it in the first time... now it gets hung up! soo, remove bracket (put the bolt back in the hole to keep it clean) and have to tap the other hole. (seems to take forever to get straight in) soo i get that tightened up. yay. the endlink was pretty uneventful, thankfully. reatach tierod end. reinstall wheel. yay. one side done. quite thankfully, the passenger side went back together without wierd incident. w00t!

soo i lost track of how many hours i fought with it, but it's done now. ---today had to be at least 2 hours, not counting the trip to the store. yikes.

though i guess the swaybar was due to be replaced. not only was the drivers end completey snapped in two, on the passenger side, one half of the eyelet wasnt attached to the bar anymore either. ~youd think it could last more than 9 years and 185K miles... sheesh~ :P