sway controll tips
forgive me all. im new to tts. somebody walk me through setting up a friction sway control setup. thanks
Forum Discussion
I towed a 26' 6K lb trailer for 25 years using a single friction bar type sway bar and in fact actually wore one out after about 20 years use and close to 100K miles of towing. The friction material on one side had worn down to the point where the metal bar was hitting the metal on the thin end of the pad material.
I had to "adjust" mine more often than most folks post or think to get the amount of "sway control" I wanted. I probably had to have mine adjusted to the more "tight" side since I was at or just over the max recommended trailer size for a single sway bar. However, when I first started using one "AL's" Internet was only a dream and sites like this were many years away so I was totally on my own.
I always checked mine when I first got on the road and to my knowledge that is the only way to do it. Here is how I checked mine. I would get to a section of interstate (you need two lanes to do this for safety and space requirements) where no one was behind me. I would move to the center of the two lanes and at around 50mph (faster is not needed and just increase any risk if you get too energetic in your maneuvers) and then fairly quickly give the wheel a turn in one direction and then straight back or slighly in the opposite direction and watch the rear of the trailer in your rear view mirror. You should ideally see the tail swing slightly and then return to the centerline with no "over swing". One has to develop a "feel" for what is good or not good and if you can a good idea is to take the time and loosen the bar a lot and do some side to side maneuvers at incressing speeds up to around 40 mph where you can get the trailer to "wag" side to side slightly and then tighen or set the "on-off" to say 1/2 way repeat the tests and finally to the full "on" postition and do the same and see how the sway amplitude is reduced. This will give you a good feel for how your TV/TT responds to steering maneuvers and how the sway bar can effect those maneuvers. Now in operation you always set the bar to the full "on" postion and this above test is just to let you get a feel for how much the bar effects the sway.
Larry
I had to "adjust" mine more often than most folks post or think to get the amount of "sway control" I wanted. I probably had to have mine adjusted to the more "tight" side since I was at or just over the max recommended trailer size for a single sway bar. However, when I first started using one "AL's" Internet was only a dream and sites like this were many years away so I was totally on my own.
I always checked mine when I first got on the road and to my knowledge that is the only way to do it. Here is how I checked mine. I would get to a section of interstate (you need two lanes to do this for safety and space requirements) where no one was behind me. I would move to the center of the two lanes and at around 50mph (faster is not needed and just increase any risk if you get too energetic in your maneuvers) and then fairly quickly give the wheel a turn in one direction and then straight back or slighly in the opposite direction and watch the rear of the trailer in your rear view mirror. You should ideally see the tail swing slightly and then return to the centerline with no "over swing". One has to develop a "feel" for what is good or not good and if you can a good idea is to take the time and loosen the bar a lot and do some side to side maneuvers at incressing speeds up to around 40 mph where you can get the trailer to "wag" side to side slightly and then tighen or set the "on-off" to say 1/2 way repeat the tests and finally to the full "on" postition and do the same and see how the sway amplitude is reduced. This will give you a good feel for how your TV/TT responds to steering maneuvers and how the sway bar can effect those maneuvers. Now in operation you always set the bar to the full "on" postion and this above test is just to let you get a feel for how much the bar effects the sway.
Larry
