I brought it back to the shop yesterday, turns out they just had to reseat the lower part of the endlink(s), I'm not sure if it was just one side or both. Anyways, the original reason for this post was that gap, as I had never seen it before, and initially thought that was the reason for the noise. ...

Ok, I just drove to work, and I'm able to reliably create the noise with a quick back and forth swerve. Still has the clunking sound like the old end links had, but it is a little sharper, and appears to be mostly on the drivers side.

That's a normal gap? I've never seen it before on this car, or when I had my '98 XC.

The noise is very similar in occurrence to when the shop determined the end links were bad, the only difference is this noise is sharper and possibly louder.

Hi All, I just had my front sway bar end links replaced at a local shop, with whatever they deemed was the correct part from NAPA (I saw the NAPA guy deliver the replacements). Anyways, a week and a half later, and not more than 200 miles, my front end is making noise again, and this is the issue. h...

Did you ever figure out the problem? my car is acting very similar to what you experienced