Anti Sway Bars?

[bduke23]

Ok gotcha. I know the mechanics of how they work, i am a mech eng student but thanks for the info. I would only be looking at factory bars that i can pull off an rbv at the junkyard, my main concern is ease of installation (everything always seems to come apart easier than going together). From what I gather here and from Google, pretty much any rear bar will bolt on. For the front I guess I'll just need to double check a few times that what I'm gonna pull will be able to mount on my truck, and if not keep looking for one that does

 

[grey]

bduke - sure, it's ok to have both, it's just what you want your vehicle to do. Sway bar stiffness increases by a square of the diameter and linearly by the length - like Allan D was talking about earlier. I think that if you put a big, fat front bar in, your truck would be tail-happy. If you put in a big fat back bar in, it would make it plow. I'm not enough of an expert to dial it in and would personally go with the factory stuff for a particular weight distribution.

I ain't no pro, but I believe that your logic is backwards on that. Adding a larger front bar makes you plow, while adding one to the rear makes your truck tail happy(or in the case of the Ranger, reduces understeer.)

 

[bduke23]

Ok just to be clear, what does plow, understeer and oversteer mean?

 

[heptofite]

plow is understeer, you turn the wheel but keep going straight.

oversteer is you turn the wheel and your tail end goes for a ride out to the side.

or to put it another way, understeer is when you hit the wall with the front of the truck, oversteer is when you hit it with the back.

 

[pjtoledo]

Ok, sway bar 101


in general, a bigger bar at one end of a vehicle makes the other end hold better.
The basic premise of a sway bar is to tie both sides of the suspension together, it tries to keep the axles and body parallel.

There is a big problem with rear bars on a light truck, when body roll happens the inside wheels get lifted. That results in less traction for the inside wheel. Want to pull out fast while turning? Ain't gonna happen, that inside rear wheel gets lifted and will loose lots of traction. lockers & limited slips behave totally different, I'm talking about standard open diffs.
Moral of the story? For street driving, a small, or no rear bar is best if you want the front of the truck to be the first part around a corner.
I have a 2000 4x4 with no rear bar and a 1-1/4 front bar. It had spin out problems with the factory rear bar.
My 2005 2wd reg cab has 1-1/16 front and the rear bar from the 2000. That's my work Ranger and always has 500# in the back, so traction is not an issue. If I were to run it empty, the rear bar would have to go.

Perry

 

[AllanD]

Ok, so only the front or rear needs to be installed. Just curious, is it okay to have both? Would a rear bar help the rear grip more in a turn, or the front? I am not interested in turning my truck into any kind of street machine, I have an unquenchable urge to tinker with everything I own. Mainly interested to help the truck ride a little better through a normal turn

what I am spending this time discussing is the two distinctly different syles of front AXLE anti-roll bar that ford used on the I-beam rangers.

The only thing to watch out for on REAR bars is that starting about mid 1986 Ford added two big ribs to the Diff housing on the rear axle, thos ribs were to protect the rear anti lock brake sensor (even though RABS was a mid year introduction on Bronco2's in '87), so if you have a rear axle with those ribs you'll need to get a sway bar with a matching over the axle curve to clear those ribs.

REMEMBER I must not only answer direct qquestions but educate the "lurkers" in any topic as well, so I have to not only be very clear inmy own remarks but must clarify the remarks of everyone else in any topic I participate in.

Understeer is simple when the steering wheel is turned the front of the vehicle
doesn't respond as much as it should because the tires slide, slip or skitter (on rough surfaces)

Oversteer is when the opposite happens because when the front wheels are turned the REAR wheel slide from the cornering load.

Understeer is refered to as "push", "plow" or rarely "tight"

Oversteer is refered to by fewer terms, most commonly "loose"

understeer is "stable" because if you turned the wheel a given ammount on a surface with enough room the wider than intended turn will eventually reach a turn radius that doesn't slip.

Oversteer turns you further into the turn and unless corrected for will result
in a "spin-out"

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[bduke23]

Ok thanks for the terms. I rarely have any weight in truck, so it would be better to have just the front one installed?