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Lifting my XJ right now, Keep rear swaybar?

KingOfTheHill

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Palmdale, Ca
should i keep it or ditch it? what is the norm?

im gonna keep the front for sure, but the back?

any info would be great... thanks

JOe
 
Ditch the sway bar. You will feel very little difference on the road but see and feel alot of difference off road. Keep the front though.
 
my re instructions actually said to remove it.. well i didnt.. rode with it for about 3 months.. took it off and never looked back... flex and ride are better
 
what about towing
 
ok thanks for the fast reply's... gonna ditch it..

i got this leaf pack used and already has an wedge in there to keep the pinion angle stock... wich side is the higher side of the block? actually its hard to explain... its not a block, its like a wedge, one side sharp the other side about 1/4-1/2"...

what side should ths sharp side point? front or back, thanks

JOe
 
KingOfTheHill said:
Lifting my XJ right now, Keep rear swaybar?
JOe

if you're gay
 
85xjwoody said:
Ditch the sway bar. You will feel very little difference on the road but see and feel alot of difference off road. Keep the front though.

What he said ^infinity.

Throw some quick disconnects on the front, but send the rear bar to the great junkyard in the sky. Up Country models (my current XJ) came without them from the factory, and removing them on others (my previous XJ) doesn't seem to have any real effect on the handling.

As for towing, I have no idea. All I've used my receiver for so far is dragging people out of or off of things.
 
There IS a mild change in handling, however, not enough to care about. On the other hand, the front sway carries alot of weight when turning and will make a major difference in handling. With my rear sway removed, I havnt noticed any change in towing ability. Rear leaves take care of most of that.

Brian
 
When I installed shims after doing the lift, I put them in with the sharper edge (if that makes sense) pointing at the rear bumper. This rotated the pinion back down. If you look at the pinion, it will rotate up as the accelerator is pushed. This helped eliminate vibes in my case.
Now...I did have a guy locally that looked at the shims and said I had them in backwards. Just cuz I was bored I went and flipped them around and the vibes were worse. The same guy said that when you hit the accelerator, the pinion will rotate down. I had to show him that mine went upwards under gas. This guy drives a TJ and I don't know anything about the suspension used on them but perhaps he was confusing the 2 or maybe I've got my shims in wrong and somethings wacky. Someone more experienced will chime in in a bit I'm sure. Sorry if that didn't help.
 
but the fat part to the front, a single u-joint on each end of the drivshaft have to operate within 5* IIRC of each other. if you put the fat part to the rear, the lower/rearmost u-joint will have very little angle while the x-case will have alot of angle, this is wrong. Almost everyone will tell you to put the fat part rearward to decrease theangle at the diff, but ask them if theve done this and how many times they replaced the u-joints. I've done both and wore out more u-joints in six months of having the fat part rearard then i've wore out on any other vehicle. when i switched the shim around i went almost 1.5 yrs before i had to replace the u-joints and that because i forgot to grease them after a stream crossing.

BTW that was with 5" of lift a D44 rear and 31" boggers. But the best thing by far is to do a SYE. Then you don't have problems no more.

Dingo
 
Thanks for clarifying Dingo.
 
Two of my friends took off both my swaybars when they lifted my jeep 4.5" while I was out of town....I really didnt notice much except now it just has a little more body roll on the street.
 
riverfever, I would suggest you dont listen the the guy with the TJ anymore as he clearly has no idea what he is talking about.
 
Yeah...when he said it I started thinking about it. I was trying to picture it his way in my mind and couldn't. I thought I was goin nuts. Either that or my rear axle was installed backwards and upside down. Wait...would that make it normal?
 
I removed the rear sway last weekend while my jeep was undergoing massive engine overhaul and was driving around an open air, STIFF suspensioned, 33" mud kings, cj-7 with a chevy 350 and a few minutes ago I finally test drove the xj to get the celebratory beer and boy oh boy!! I thought I was driving a cadillac!! quiet, smooth, gutless- everything you'd expect from an xj:) oh yeah but I could feel the body roll from the rear end, then again maybe it felt that way before I spent a week solid driving that TANK! how is that for anecdotal evidence?
 
my rough country springs had shims built in already. the sharp edge faces front. it rotates the axle, facing your pinion angle up towards the transfer.
 
Well i will be in the same boat in a few days while installing my XJ 2" AAL in the rear and was wonderign the same thing.

Mostly everyone here says to remove them, but thats bc you all offroad a lot. In my situation my jeep will be used 85% street and maybe 15% off road. I have heard many say that removing the rear sway bar makes it lean a bit on turns and so and that leads me to believe maybe it would be better to keep it in there ?

Also when i add the leaves,,,someone mentioned something about if you keep it in there it will make the leaves (with AAL) settle unbalanced ?

Whats gonn be ebtter for my situation ?

pete
 
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