Friction Sway Bar Adjustment?

brulaz wrote:

12rvjoe wrote:
Interesting .... I have been using mine wrong all along lol

Question's : How do I know that I have adjusted the tension bolt correctly ?

: When I turn the top handle to off ( loosen it ) the bar slides easily, should it ?

Joe

When I loosen the top lever, the bar slides easily. I think that's as it should be. And then you crank down the lever as much as you can to "turn on" the sway control, leaving the lever in a horizontal position so it doesn't interfere with your WDH.

As for the tension bolt adjustment: trial and error seems to be the answer. On mine, finger tightening seems about right.

I used a single friction sway bar on our last trailer for 26 years and actually wore one out after almost 20 years and 100K miles towing. What Skip says is IMO absolutely incorrect ... these friction bars DO NEED to be adjusted and should be tested for effectiveness each time you start a road trip or about every 500 miles or so. They are basically just like your trailer brakes as the linings wear they need to be adjusted. Here is how I always tested mine and it must be done on the road. I would typically get on the interstate on a straight stretch with no traffic with two lanes and get in the middle of the road at a speed of around 50mph. The take and make a short fairly quick "S" type maneuver and watch the rear of the trailer. Now you don't need to make a real hard maneuver ... what you want is to see the back of the trailer swing to one side and the maybe make a small swing to the opposite side once you are going straight and then fall into line w/o any more tail wagging. This is hard to explain, but a little careful experimenting and it will be fairly obvious when the sway is working. I always wanted mine fairly tight. Initially you can carefully back off on the ON>OFF bar a lot and see how your trailer swings multiple times back and forth w/o any sway control and I recommend doing this test at around 40 mph which is plenty fast enough.

Larry