Flexing.... All The Time.
Thread Starter
JK Newbie
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 95
Likes: 0
From: Atlantic County
Flexing.... All The Time.
Why Do We Need To Disconnect And Reconnect The Sway Bar. Why Not Leave It Off All The Time??? What Happens???
2nd Question...
Anyone Know How To Do It Yourself??? Where Is What You Need To Disconnect. I Understand Theres A Tool For It... But Where Exactly To You Do This. Anyone W. Pics Please Post. Thanks.
2nd Question...
Anyone Know How To Do It Yourself??? Where Is What You Need To Disconnect. I Understand Theres A Tool For It... But Where Exactly To You Do This. Anyone W. Pics Please Post. Thanks.
JK Super Freak
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 1,441
Likes: 1
From: Gilmanton Iron Works, NH
Disconnected swaybars + unexpected evasive manuevers on the street (dodging Suzy Soccermom who just pulled out in front of you whle talking on her cellphone) = sliding down the road on your roof. 
Bad for your insurance premiums.
Bad for your insurance premiums.
JK Junkie
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 3,130
Likes: 2
From: Highland, Utah
The Jk is equipped with an "ANTI-SWAY" bar that is attached directly to the frame rails. At the end of the anti-sway bar are links that run verticle and attach to the axle on each side. The anti-sway bar does exactly that. It makes your vehicle not sway when you turn side to side. When you disconnect to rock crawl it allows the front axle to articulate and keep the tires on the ground. Disconnect it gives traction and articulation=stability. At slow sppeds it's wonderful. At high speeds without it it's deadly.
How do stabilizer bars work?
Stabilizer bars are part of a car's suspension system. They are sometimes also called anti-sway bars or anti-roll bars. Their purpose in life is to try to keep the car's body from "rolling" in a sharp turn.
Think about what happens to a car in a sharp turn. If you are inside the car, you know that your body gets pulled toward the outside of the turn. The same thing is happening to all the parts of the car. So the part of the car on the outside of the turn gets pushed down toward the road and the part of the car on the inside of the turn rises up. In other words, the body of the car "rolls" 10 or 20 or 30 degrees toward the outside of the turn. If you take a turn fast enough, the tires on the inside of the turn actually rise off the road and the car flips over.
Roll is bad. It tends to put more weight on the outside tires and less weigh on the inside tires, reducing traction. It also messes up steering. What you would like is for the body of the car to remain flat through a turn so that the weight stays distributed evenly on all four tires.
A stabilizer bar tries to keep the car's body flat by moving force from one side of the body to another. To picture how a stabilizer bar works, imagine a metal rod that is an inch or two (2 to 5 cm) in diameter. If your front tires are 5 feet (1.6 meters) apart, make the rod about 4 feet long. Attach the rod to the frame of the car in front of the front tires, but attach it with bushings in such a way that it can rotate. Now attach arms from the rod to the front suspension member on both sides.
When you go into a turn now, the front suspension member of the outside of the turn gets pushed upward. The arm of the sway bar gets pushed upward, and this applies torsion to the rod. The torsion them moves the arm at the other end of the rod, and this causes the suspension on the other side of the car to compress as well. The car's body tends to stay flat in the turn.
If you don't have a stabilizer bar, you tend to have a lot of trouble with body roll in a turn. If you have too much stabilizer bar, you tend to lose independence between the suspension members on both sides of the car. When one wheel hits a bump, the stabilizer bar transmits the bump to the other side of the car as well, which is not what you want. The ideal is to find a setting that reduces body roll but does not hurt the independence of the tires.
How do stabilizer bars work?
Stabilizer bars are part of a car's suspension system. They are sometimes also called anti-sway bars or anti-roll bars. Their purpose in life is to try to keep the car's body from "rolling" in a sharp turn.
Think about what happens to a car in a sharp turn. If you are inside the car, you know that your body gets pulled toward the outside of the turn. The same thing is happening to all the parts of the car. So the part of the car on the outside of the turn gets pushed down toward the road and the part of the car on the inside of the turn rises up. In other words, the body of the car "rolls" 10 or 20 or 30 degrees toward the outside of the turn. If you take a turn fast enough, the tires on the inside of the turn actually rise off the road and the car flips over.
Roll is bad. It tends to put more weight on the outside tires and less weigh on the inside tires, reducing traction. It also messes up steering. What you would like is for the body of the car to remain flat through a turn so that the weight stays distributed evenly on all four tires.
A stabilizer bar tries to keep the car's body flat by moving force from one side of the body to another. To picture how a stabilizer bar works, imagine a metal rod that is an inch or two (2 to 5 cm) in diameter. If your front tires are 5 feet (1.6 meters) apart, make the rod about 4 feet long. Attach the rod to the frame of the car in front of the front tires, but attach it with bushings in such a way that it can rotate. Now attach arms from the rod to the front suspension member on both sides.
When you go into a turn now, the front suspension member of the outside of the turn gets pushed upward. The arm of the sway bar gets pushed upward, and this applies torsion to the rod. The torsion them moves the arm at the other end of the rod, and this causes the suspension on the other side of the car to compress as well. The car's body tends to stay flat in the turn.
If you don't have a stabilizer bar, you tend to have a lot of trouble with body roll in a turn. If you have too much stabilizer bar, you tend to lose independence between the suspension members on both sides of the car. When one wheel hits a bump, the stabilizer bar transmits the bump to the other side of the car as well, which is not what you want. The ideal is to find a setting that reduces body roll but does not hurt the independence of the tires.
JK Newbie
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 94
Likes: 0
The sway bar has an added function beyond just controlling body roll. It basically controls whether the vehicle understeers or oversteers. Sway bars are one of the primary ways that the vehicle handling characteristics are tuned.
Sway bars can be placed on the front, rear or both axles. If you stiffen up the front sway bar, it will make the car understeer more. If you stiffen up the rear sway bar it will make the car oversteer more. If you remove the front bar (or make it less stiff), it will make the car oversteer more. If you remove the rear bar (or make it less stiff), it will make the car understeer more.
It is the combined stiffness of BOTH bars that determines the overall roll stiffness of the vehicle (in other words, how much the body rolls or leans in a corner). However, this overall roll stiffness can be achieved with a very stiff front bar and a wimpy rear bar, a stiff rear bar and a wimpy front bar or moderately stiff front and rear bar. This is the key to tuning the handling - you set the combined stiffness to the value you need to control the body roll and then you partition it, more or less, to the front or rear to adjust the overall handling from understeer to oversteer.
OK, maybe in Jeeps we don't care that much about fine tuning the handling. However, by taking the front bar off, you will create a vehicle that will have a big tendency to oversteer. In other words, it will want to spin out if you hit a corner too fast or have to swerve suddenly. It's basically unsafe.
Best advice - don't leave your sway bar disconnected on the street. It's dangerous to you, your family, passengers and others on the road.
Sway bars can be placed on the front, rear or both axles. If you stiffen up the front sway bar, it will make the car understeer more. If you stiffen up the rear sway bar it will make the car oversteer more. If you remove the front bar (or make it less stiff), it will make the car oversteer more. If you remove the rear bar (or make it less stiff), it will make the car understeer more.
It is the combined stiffness of BOTH bars that determines the overall roll stiffness of the vehicle (in other words, how much the body rolls or leans in a corner). However, this overall roll stiffness can be achieved with a very stiff front bar and a wimpy rear bar, a stiff rear bar and a wimpy front bar or moderately stiff front and rear bar. This is the key to tuning the handling - you set the combined stiffness to the value you need to control the body roll and then you partition it, more or less, to the front or rear to adjust the overall handling from understeer to oversteer.
OK, maybe in Jeeps we don't care that much about fine tuning the handling. However, by taking the front bar off, you will create a vehicle that will have a big tendency to oversteer. In other words, it will want to spin out if you hit a corner too fast or have to swerve suddenly. It's basically unsafe.
Best advice - don't leave your sway bar disconnected on the street. It's dangerous to you, your family, passengers and others on the road.
Last edited by gcg; Jul 23, 2007 at 05:12 PM.