A Front Sway Bar on a 72 4x4?

[72longbed]

For those of you that put a 73-87 front sway bar on a 67-72 4x4, I have a question.

When mounted, does the sway bar have to be level with the road surface to function properly? IF yes, what do you do about mounting the front cross section on a 4" lifted truck?

Thanks for your input and advice please.

72longbed

[71blazerdetroit]

the right way is longer links on the ends of the sway bar.

understand with a swaybar up front on a lifted 4x4 with solid axle, your reducing the artiulation alot if you play off road.

Or look for disconnect links, i think ORD sells them.

[puller]

I just put a dana 60 front in my 70 chev and added sway bar. Had to weld cross member in to hold sway bar mounts other than that was very easy.[ATTACH][ATTACH][/ATTACH][/ATTACH]

[special-K]

When you lift a truck that comes with a sway bar,like post-72s,the best way to compensate for the lift is to space the sway bar mounts off the cross member. Longer links make it weaker and also allow more lateral movement,which is cancelling out the whole point of the sway bar. On a 4" lift they supply pieces of 1 1/2" square tube,which works fine. So,staying level doesn't matter much. I imagine with the angle too steep would cause the sway bar to perform poorly,though. My '72 K2500 has a sway bar added and the cross member is a piece of c-channel flat side down. Articulation is only an issue in extreme off roading and most things that increase articulation take away from road manners,especially on a heavy truck.

[72longbed]

Thanks folks .... so I think I'll just weld in a piece of square or rectangular 'tube' stock to bring it down about 2.5" to 3" below the bottom of the frame rails, and bolt the front brackets to that.

Think that will be ok?

72

[snj8198]

That's what i did with mine. IIRC I used a chunk of 2x3 or 2x4 and templated the front cross member. If you cut a walled side and weld the mount on with the other wall facing down then you will be able to get your wrench in each open end when it's time to bolt your brackets to the mounts. Wish I had a picture to show what I mean, I'm out of town, but you probably get it.

[72longbed]

snj8198,
if you don't mind, when you get back can you take a couple of pics to show me how you did yours? I can wait to get the steel and to fab it up until I see what you did.

Thanks in advance if you can do that for me. I appreciate it.

72

[snj8198]

yes sir, Friday afternoon hopefully. I really enjoy the feel of the truck after the install. Get new bushings when you mount it.

[Billhilly]

Spacer blocks obviously work, but as 71blazerdetroit say's, another way of doing it would be to just use disconnect's like in the pics. Don't need to use the disconnect pin, could just put a bolt in. Would imagine plenty strong enough, and gives you the 1 1/2" - 2" the spacers would but the bar remains bolted up snug on the cross member. The other real bonus is the disconnects take the bind out of the stock set up. Off Road Design sell them - http://offroaddesign.com/catalog/swaybarkit.htm

[snj8198]

Originally Posted by 72longbed

snj8198,
if you don't mind, when you get back can you take a couple of pics to show me how you did yours? I can wait to get the steel and to fab it up until I see what you did.

Thanks in advance if you can do that for me. I appreciate it.

72

I did not get to go home this weekend so I didn't get any pics. I hope to get home next weekend. If I do I promise to snap and post a couple for ya.

I'm very sorry for the delay. I think this is the second time I've failed to get you pictures you requested. My apologies.

-steve

[72longbed]

Steve, no need to apologize .... I understand that things change (boy, do I understand that!) , so when you get home, and you have to the time to snap off a few .... Thanks a million!

I spent some time this week removing the entire front suspension from the truck. I'm adding the extra leafs that came with the EZ-Ride front spring packs to make it a bit more heavy duty. While I have everything off, I'm cleaning up rust from the CRAP that they sprayed on the roads last winter that ruined a lot of my hard work restoring the undercarriage over the years. The State ought to be sued for the damage that sh%# did to people's vehicles.

So I wire wheeled everything, de-greased it all, and gave it all a couple of good coats of Rustoleum rust proofer black paint. I'm off today and going to put it all back together soon. The sway bar will be test fitted into place today but I can't actually leave it bolted to the spring plates until I have an upper crossmember in there to bolt the front of it to.

I'm slowly getting things back to where they should be .... takes time.

Thanks,
72longbed

[special-K]

Spacers at the crossmember mounts hold a sway bar just as snug as OEM. The advantage to doing it this way is it helps keep it closer to factory geometry. The sway bar is actually supposed to provide a controlled bind to minimize movement which in turns "stabilizes" the vehicle's cornering ability. If a person is adding a stabilizer to a vehicle that never had one,I would thing the goal would be increased on road cornering stability. If off road articulation was my goal,I'd leave the truck as it is with no sway bar.

[snj8198]

72longbed,

pics as I promised.







these are cut out of a chunk of 2x3 or 2x4 square tubing. I cut the enclosed end to weld the to cross member so i could get a boxed end wrench in the front and rear for the sway bar bushing mounts. This seemed to space the bar down a bit to compensate for the 2" lift. I don't know if it was necessary but it seemed logical to my shadetree mechanical ability and it worked well.

-steve

[snj8198]

the system only let me post 3 pics at a time for some reason. a couple more.

[72longbed]

Thanks Steve, your truck looks great and I really like the way you mounted that sway bar! I think I'll do it that way too.

Great pics and the finished product looks very professional.

Thanks for sending me the pictures.

Phil

[BLAZERMAN]

Heres another good write up by Bobby K with lots of good pics.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...t=4x4+sway+bar

http://public.fotki.com/blazbk/blaze...ation_of_fron/

[snj8198]

Originally Posted by BLAZERMAN

Heres another good write up by Bobby K with lots of good pics.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...t=4x4+sway+bar

http://public.fotki.com/blazbk/blaze...ation_of_fron/

Crikey that's a stout looking set up!