Fck This House - FTH

FTH learned a valuable lesson today and it has to do with auto repair.
It starts with a rattling sound from the front end on our 14yo Suburban. I needed to change the oil anyway, so I inspected the suspension while I was under there. The problem couldn't have been more obvious. Both sway bar links had one bushing each and were flopping around like old man ti***es. I got replacement parts and went to my main resource for repair help, YouTube. The video made it look pretty simple, so I got started. I should've know I was doomed when I took for granted the bougie-ass mechanic in the video had a lift and power tools.
The lesson learned came when I attempted to do one side at a time. I jacked up the passenger side, took off the wheel, removed the damaged part and started putting on the replacements. It turned out to be an amazing struggle as the space that came with the replacements was too long for the whole unit to fit. I recycled the old space and forced the part into place, then tightened down like thw video said. When I pulled the old sway link off the other side I noticed the sway bar and control arm were even closer to each other than the passenger side. The new parts were a full inch away from fitting. That's when I learned the lesson. I had to loosen the passenger side link all the way down to create space on the driver's side. Once I dis that, it was peaches and cream.
All new parts on and properly tightened, I took the car around downtown and the rattle was gone. My big takeaway from this was to make sure my YouTube videos always feature a driveway mechanic like myself.