Backing with a sway bar

I don't own that type any more but did for about 9 years. I never removed my friction sway bar when backing up. I think it depends on your particular setup

Maybe on a gusty day your relative snugs up the friction bar. Makes sense to me.
Water is a lubricant. My Equalizer 4 point automatically adjusts for wet conditions.

Backing up issues ONLY involve the add on friction sway bars. If you have a hitch with engineered built in sway control, you don't have to worry about backing. End of story.
Lynnmore wants you to believe that it is important to reduce friction when towing in wet conditions. I can tell you from first hand experience that my Equalizer can't seem to tell the difference. I have towed two different trailers well over 50K miles with an Equalizer. Towed in rain, torrential at times, and gone uphill and down, into the wind and with the wind and have never had any trouble or sensed any sway. If you are using an add on friction bar, do you have to pull over and adjust your friction when it starts to rain? How much should you increase the friction? One full turn, or two or...? Or, should you decrease the friction? Again, one turn or two? I find all of this rather silly. Wet pavement does reduce friction between the rubber and the road. Does this alone cause increased trailer sway? And if so, how would your adjustments to your sway bar prevent this?
I have a relative that tows a pretty good sized trailer with a small truck. He uses an add on sway bar. When I asked him if he had any trouble with it he told me, "I usually don't use it. I will attach it if I think I might need it". Yeah, somehow he can predict when a sway condition will pop up. I guess that is similar to changing it when it rains. How much rain, how long will it be raining? Should I change it right now, or can I wait? Hmmmm....

I did an experiment to see how serious a problem backing with a sway bar is. I removed the sway bar, backed up to get the trailer at about a 45 degree angle to the TV, and then tried to put the sway bar on. It fit. Then I took it off, backed some more to get closer to 60 degrees, and it still fit. So I think I would have to get the trailer seriously jackknifed to bend the sway bar.

Of course this may depend on the exact position of the ball on the A frame that the bar attaches to.

That control system in your truck will do exactly nothing till things are already out of control.

If a pin is too much trouble, then I don't know what to tell you. Tell me how you intend to adjust the sway control for wet conditions on other types of hitches. (Hint, you can't)

Lynnmor wrote:

Hannibal wrote:

mkirsch wrote:
It's not the friction between the bars and brackets that they're worried about. It's the friction between the tires and the road.

... how too much friction in sway control might cause a problem with reduce friction between the tires and the road?

... The result would be tires skidding as they tour a curve . A sway control system will tend to do that very thing. Too much resistance to bending and a problem may develop. A wet or icy road will exacerbate the problem, so being able to reduce friction is an advantage.

My half ton pickup truck has a vehicle stability system that controls the trailer brakes if the "yaw" sensor in the truck detects trailer sway. I only experience the slightest amount of sway towing our TT. On the occasion when I forgot to tighten the friction sway device, the truck and TT handled the same.

Now that I hear that a friction device will affect the control of my trailer, I wish to quit using it. The friction device makes backing tricky (hence this thread). The cotter pin attachment is hard to fuss with. And now I have to pull over when it is raining and spin it loose?

I would have thought that damping would be better with a fluid shock absorber as is done for steering damping in off road vehicles. Maybe that was done in the past! Thx for the insights!!

I never had any problem at all whatsoever backing up with the sway bar on until I broke one (over-stretched).

You probably don't have to remove it every single time you back up, but if you anticipate getting a very sharp angle between the trailer in the car maybe it would be good.

Your mileage may vary.

My first TT years ago had one of those friction anti-sway bars. I had heard that it was possible to break if if backing into spots with tight turns. Erring on the side of caution, It became my habit to always disconnect it before backing. Never had a problem.

Lynnmor wrote:


I think you both are on the same side of the argument. Think of a truck and trailer with the hitch welded so that they both stay in line. The result would be tires skidding as they tour a curve. A sway control system will tend to do that very thing. Too much resistance to bending and a problem may develop. A wet or icy road will exacerbate the problem, so being able to reduce friction is an advantage.

That's what I'm trying to say. It IS the friction between the sway control components that resists bending which could cause loss of traction at the pavement.

Hannibal wrote:

mkirsch wrote:

Hannibal wrote:
Water is an effective lubricant. I would think water would automatically reduce the friction of the Equalizer 4 pt or Reese dual cam. I use a dab of grease on my L brackets anyhow to keep them quiet so it's already less effective.

It's not the friction between the bars and brackets that they're worried about. It's the friction between the tires and the road.

Are you not understanding how too much friction in sway control might cause a problem with reduce friction between the tires and the road?

I think you both are on the same side of the argument. Think of a truck and trailer with the hitch welded so that they both stay in line. The result would be tires skidding as they tour a curve. A sway control system will tend to do that very thing. Too much resistance to bending and a problem may develop. A wet or icy road will exacerbate the problem, so being able to reduce friction is an advantage.