torsion bar clearification

ok so. I am under the impression you DO NOT need your torsion bar, and with it off it gives you more travel. So. if you dont need it,.....what's it do?

T Bars put downward pressure on your lca's thus keeping your front end up. You CAN NOT drive without you're t bars.

Where are you getting the idea you don't need them???

I think you probably mean sway bar aka anti-sway bar aka stabilizer bar.

You my friend, need to get much smarter friends,

woah, yeah, sorry i'm an idiot. i wasnt thinking when i wrote that. and i wanted to say sway bar.

WOW!

well memeresto? could ya explain? im 19, havent done a lot with this newer vehicle. the only mechanic experience i have is my 86' k-10. and thats a lot different than my X

Here's my best explanation:

Picture yourself in a sports car going around a tight corner really fast. You can feel the centrifugal force pushing you sideways, but the car remains nice and stable - hugging the road all the way through the corner.

Now picture going around that same corner - but this time your seat is attached to to the top of a 5' long spring like those little horses in the playground. The car will still go around the corner just fine - but you're going to be leaning waaay out as the spring bends.

A sway bar (or to be more accurate, anti-sway bar) goes from a point near one wheel, up to the body, across to another point on the body on the other side, and then down to a point near the wheel on the other side. You have one in the front and one in the rear.

This creates a firm but flexible connection between the wheels and the body and it also creates a connection between the two wheels.
They allow the body to 'roll' a little bit in the corners - but not too much.

You can take 'em off for a bit more articulation offroad - but then your truck will lean a lot more in the corners. It also (and much more importantly) makes the vehicle much more unstable and hard to handle in an emergency situation. If you suddenly jerk the wheel to the side on the freeway (say, someone cuts you off at high speed) you'll have a harder time regaining control of the vehicle.

You won't notice much onroad difference if you remove the rear sway bar. You'll notice a big difference if you remove the front.

Back before my solid axle swap I permanently removed the rear - but I kept the front one on except for a couple occasions where I was on week-long offroad trips.

Kaiser summed it up pretty well, But I will teach you how to spell CLARIFICATION.

Excellent explanation, Kaiser. That actually made me laugh.

But one really important thing to remember (I wish I had a nickel for every time I have said this):

Aside from it being dangerous to drive (on paved roads at least) with the front anti-sway bar disconnected, it is also illegal! If you are in an accident, god forbid, and you have that bar diconnected you'll be buggered with a 10' pole.

No one cares about the rear one, apparently. So go ahead and pull that one off, but don't toss it, in case you ever decide to sell the truck - the new owner might want it for the safety.

Scott

However, it does not need capitalized in this particular example.

Now they're all CAPITALIZED .....
What are you looking at this for anyway... you don't even have T-bars

Uh, neither do you anymore.

hey thanks kaiser. that was a good explanation. so if i take off the rear, i wont notice too much ON road. But will it make much of a difference OFF road?

memeresto would you mind checking my spelling on this paragraph? thanks pal.

You got me there.....

Leeboy, you won't notice on road unless you're trying to do corners at high speeds. And yes, it will give you more articulation. Sometimes the sway bar actually does damage to shocks when left on offroading.

ok. well im pretty damn sure im not going to be taking any corners at high speeds, with, or without, the sway bar,..so. it wont hurt to just take it off>?

Nope.

Source for it being illegal? That would also vary from state to state.

I was wondering the same thing... of course he's from Canada eh..

Yeah - it might be a Canadian thing... But since we just sort of adopt alot of our laws from you guys (why bother do all that work?), I wouldn't be surprised if a front sway bar was mandatory south of the border.

Scott

LOL...I can guarantee you that it's not mandatory in several states, if not most of them. In fact, since a sway bar is part of your suspension, it's modification is, for lack of a better term, protected in Colorado at least. Back in the day, Colorado passed a law that made it illegal to modify a vehicles suspension...the law was repealed not long after as unconstitutional.

Seriously, though, I'd like to see a link for the law in Ontario that states you must have a front sway bar as I don't recall that being the case when I was living there.

well, im not worried about if it is, or isn't legal. i just want to get it strait. the rear one, lose it. and the front is the one you need?

Yes, sort of. You don't need either of them, in actuality. I (and several other people I know and wheel with) have run without them for years, just fine, you just have to drive like it's a truck, not a sports car.

Fine if it's not a daily driver.... last thing we need is 2x a year wheelers yanking their front swaybars since someone on XOC said they weren't needed.

I had to dodge an Audi the other day and without having the rear bar it was a bit hair raising.

Just sayin.. .. ..

Here you go, ChefTyler:

It's checked for on any safety certificate, and his hidden here, in Section VI of the HTA.

It's hidden, in that an inspection of the vehicle will show that there is a piece missing, and is therefore a defect:

(12) Where any vehicle examined or tested under subsection (2), (3) or (4), or any of its equipment, is found to have a prescribed defect or to be in a dangerous or unsafe condition, with or without a prescribed defect, the police officer or officer appointed for carrying out the provisions of this Act making the examinations or tests may,

(a) require the driver, owner or operator of the vehicle to have the prescribed defect repaired and the vehicle and its equipment placed in a safe condition;

(b) order the vehicle to be removed from the highway; and

(c) prohibit the operation of the vehicle on the highway until the prescribed defect has been repaired and the vehicle and its equipment are in a safe condition.

Anyway, I'm with bpc on this one - if the truck is a DD, leave the sway bar alone.

Scott

Thanks, Scott, exactly what I was looking for

As for Leeboy...go ahead and yank the rear one, drive it for a week (carefully), then disconnect the front one and drive it (more carefully) for a few days, or around a parking lot, to get a feel for it. Then go ahead and make your decision about the front. Having said that, what bpc and Scotto said makes perfect sense... Part of my advice also comes with driving an SAS'd Xterra with really soft springs up front and no sway bar, so take that for what it's worth.

I'm gonna disagree with Chef on this one.. Take the rear off for sure... no biggie.. but i'd leave the front on. Even off road you aren't going to achieve what it's worth in travel to disco the front. That and you put the CV's at a greater angle, putting you more at risk at snapping one.

Not to make this any more complicated, but I also run without front or rear sway bars. I do, however, have the stiffer bars that were part of the Calmini kit. With stock bars, I would recommend keeping them on as long as your X is on the pavement.

Despite the title this thread is about sway bars

So your T-bars help cornering?

I forget who it was that did the test. But they went on an RTI ramp with both sway bars, then the rear one removed, then the front and rear removed. There was a big increase in articulation with the rear one removed. With the front removed as well, there was just a slight increased over just the rear removed.

I'd be willing to bet that for most wheelers (including myself), the extra gain obtained by removing the front one is hardly worth the effort.

If only I could find that thread. Had pictures and RTI figures.

its funny, i totally mis labeled this topic and its become a good lil discussion. thanks everyone for the input. I will probably take the rear sway bar off and leave the front. it is a DD so ill be safe. I heard something about "quick disconnects" so i could just easily take them off when going off road. do these parts exist?

Calmini sells the rear (rattles like a mofo from what I've heard), fab it yourself for the front. There's a thread here or on NOR about the front disco's.

NOR?

NOR

Years later and many miles away , your explanation help me too , thanks from Brazil