I’ve been driving my short 80 for two years without the front sway bar. This is a trail modification that started when the the right side bracket broke off. I had heard a noise and didn’t think of much of it. Then I had just reached near the bottom of a descent, pointing towards a several hundred foot cliff just before Devil’s racetrack when the brake pedal went to the floor. Turns out when you break that right side bracket the sway bar is free to get into the hard brake line right above it.
I was in low range 1st and pumping the brakes and pulling the handbrake got me to a stop. It could have been bad.
We pinched off the line with vice grips, turned around and drove back to Green River. Bought a short piece of 3/16 metric brake line and fixed it.
If you don’t have a front sway bar, you don’t have something that’s gonna rip off and take out your brake line. So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
Where you will most notice the difference without a front sway bar is if you need to make an emergency maneuver. In normal driving I think it felt it a little different in Glenwood Canyon, but not much elsewhere.
The factory bracket breaks because it is welded at the front and back of the U and it is not welded along the sides where the vertical plates extend upward to hold the sway bar.
When I had the engine out of the LongCruiser, we ran weld along the sides of the brackets to anchor them. While I am rebuilding a front axle to put under the LongCruiser, I will be reinforcing the brackets. When I finally get around to fixing the bracket on my Short 80 front axle Landtank makes a heavy duty bracket to replace the factory one. It would all be also be fairly easy for any half competent fabricator to make a bracket.
First three or what they should look like. Pictures of my left side. Next two are the bracket after being broken off. Pictures of my right side. Final is me holding the broken bracket up against where it broke off.
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