Electric sway bar disconnect

[gw33gp]

Has anyone considered adapting the later Jeep Rubicon electric sway bar disconnect to a Ranger? I checked out the dimensions and realized the Rubicon sway bar is too large to fit a Ranger and gave up the idea of a direct swap. Then it came to me, there may be a way to install the electrical disconnect itself to the Ranger way bar.

I know it would involve a lot of fabrication (cutting, welding, machining, etc.) but it might be possible to do it. I don't know if it would be worth the effort but it would be nice to just flip a switch to disconnect the sway bar when needed.

Does anyone know the details of the inside of that system and how it works?

 

[the_novice]

Google rubicon sway bar disconnect problem. There are quite a few pictures of them taken apart by guys converting them to mechanical. I was out with a friend of mine in his '13 rubicon. We went through a decent sized hole and his sway bar wouldn't reconnect until the next day when it dried out.

 

[adsm08]

Has anyone considered adapting the later Jeep Rubicon electric sway bar disconnect to a Ranger? I checked out the dimensions and realized the Rubicon sway bar is too large to fit a Ranger and gave up the idea of a direct swap. Then it came to me, there may be a way to install the electrical disconnect itself to the Ranger way bar.

I know it would involve a lot of fabrication (cutting, welding, machining, etc.) but it might be possible to do it. I don't know if it would be worth the effort but it would be nice to just flip a switch to disconnect the sway bar when needed.

Does anyone know the details of the inside of that system and how it works?

Have you learned nothing from reading about auto hubs?

The more convenient it seems on paper the more likely it is to suck sweaty monkey balls in practice.

 

[4.0B2]

The 2012 Rubi in looking at, the guy always manually disconnected when rock climbing... Bc of the issues he had.

 

[gw33gp]

I lived with auto locking hubs for 13 years with my 89 STX Ranger. I was leery about them at first but learned they are not that unreliable. When they were fairly new, I did feel them disconnect and reconnect a couple times when climbing steep rough terrain but did not present a problem. They seemed to improve with age, maybe they just broke-in. I never broke one.

I kept them lubed well and they never gave me any problems. I also didn't beat the heck out of them. I get full use of my trucks but don't believe in thrashing them.

I just spent 9 days off-road with a couple seasoned off-road drivers. One of them had a Rubicon with the electric disconnect. Once, we got into some pretty tough rock crawling and he started slipping a little. He hit the disconnect to get more wheel travel and he got much better traction. He was able to reconnect the sway bar later. He said you have to be on pretty level ground to get them to re-engage.

I don't like complexity when it comes to off-road, that is why I got the FX4 with twin sticks when they came out in 2002. I just have not seen any disconnects that I really like. I get tired of unscrewing the bolts to disconnect mine then having to tie it up so it doesn't get tangled in the suspension. I also prefer to have the sway bar engaged most of the time when I am off-road, most of all when I encounter side angles. No sway bar lets it lean too much and increases the chance of rolling on the side. Having an electric disconnect would really be nice if they are reliable.

It looks like I may have to find out for myself. If there are so many people that have problems with them, maybe I can get one cheap to work with.

 

[adsm08]

I lived with auto locking hubs for 13 years with my 89 STX Ranger. I was leery about them at first but learned they are not that unreliable. When they were fairly new, I did feel them disconnect and reconnect a couple times when climbing steep rough terrain but did not present a problem. They seemed to improve with age, maybe they just broke-in. I never broke one.

I don't "thrash" my vehicles either, but I do expect them to work. I managed to fully grenade two auto hubs in 18 months.