Not the most elegant solution, but a solution.
I wheeled my 80 with a disconnected front anti-sway bar for almost a decade and found the difference to be significant not in terms of ultimate wheel travel, but in overall compliance of the front suspension and resulting reduction in body movement. It generally makes for a better balanced truck off road.
The 100-series front suspension is arguably more "tight" than the 80, and could also benefit from losing the front anti-sway bar off road. The effects have been noted by a few people here on the forum.
The front anti-sway bar has some important effects on-road and during high-speed maneuvers, and it's generally accepted that the front anti-sway bar is needed for safe driving under these circumstances. Hence the need for a "quick disconnect."
Solutions for the 80 involve replacing the bolts at the axle-side mount with quick-release pins and welding a retainer to the frame to hold the disconnected ends of the anti-sway bar up out of the way, like the option LandCruiserPhil fabricated:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/front-sway-bar-disconnect.22921/
I ran my own version of this and it worked well.
I've created a similar version for my LX470, this time without any welding:
1. Replace the bolts at the lower control arm with a 3/8" pin:
"Is the pin strong enough?"
This is a low-grade pin from Lowes. I used the same exact pins on the front anti-sway bar on my 80 for almost a decade and they never failed. That said, you can google the shear strength of various grade and size bolts--and once you adjust for the pin having a full 3/8" diameter rather than a nominal diameter that includes the threads--you will find that a grade 2 3/8" pin is very very close to the shear strength of a grade 8 bolt of the same nominal diameter because it is thicker in actual diameter. Sorry, no links.
I've been driving like this for a few months--including off-road where I had the front suspension fully cross-loaded.
Important: To get this 3/8" pin to fit, I did have to drill the threads out of the captive nut on the bracket. No going back on this one.
2. To retain the disconnected bar I utilized existing bolts and holes that hold the front height sensor for the AHC system. My AHC system is long gone, so I don't need these parts. Not sure if the LC has these same bolts or not.
The bolt holes:
3. Something to retain the disconnected bar.
I'd like to figure out a classier solution, but I whipped this up with stuff I had in the garage. Maybe somebody can come up with something nicer going forward, but this works.
Small piece of angle steel, drilled for the bolts and cut with a slot:
4. Bolt onto the frame. Insert Voile ski strap. Anti-swar bar is out of the way.
Keep in mind that there is no force on the bar other than its dead weight. The strap only has to support the weight of the bar.
Without fully articulating the front end, I can't say for 100% certain that there is adequate clearance for the lower arm to compress to the bumpstop without contacting the free end of the anti-way bar link--but it looks like it should be just fine. The anti-sway bar is rotated up all the way until the central section has contacted the fiberglass skid plate, so I'm quite confident that there is adequate clearance. I'm headed to Moab next weekend, so I'll report back with details.
Important considerations:
If the central portion of the rotated anti-sway bar were to contact a rock and be pushed up, it would rotate the bar down against the strap (or whatever you've used to retain the bar). As long as I'm not dragging the figerglass skid across the rocks (wouldn't want to do that anyway), this this will not happen.
However, in the event of the arm being forced down against the lower control arm, it appears that all brake lines and sensor wires are out of the line of fire (NOT the case on the 80.)
Last but not least, it DOES work as a ~quick disconnect/reconnect with the following caveats:
You have to be on flat ground so the anti-sway bar is not loaded.
You have to lay on the ground and reach up behind the tire to greasy dirty parts.
You have to wiggle and put a little effort into getting the pins in and out.
It's probably something you'd want to do right before you hit the trail, and not out in the mud and dirt.
I can disconnect and reconnect both ends in my garage in less than 5 minutes.
I wheeled my 80 with a disconnected front anti-sway bar for almost a decade and found the difference to be significant not in terms of ultimate wheel travel, but in overall compliance of the front suspension and resulting reduction in body movement. It generally makes for a better balanced truck off road.
The 100-series front suspension is arguably more "tight" than the 80, and could also benefit from losing the front anti-sway bar off road. The effects have been noted by a few people here on the forum.
The front anti-sway bar has some important effects on-road and during high-speed maneuvers, and it's generally accepted that the front anti-sway bar is needed for safe driving under these circumstances. Hence the need for a "quick disconnect."
Solutions for the 80 involve replacing the bolts at the axle-side mount with quick-release pins and welding a retainer to the frame to hold the disconnected ends of the anti-sway bar up out of the way, like the option LandCruiserPhil fabricated:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/front-sway-bar-disconnect.22921/
I ran my own version of this and it worked well.
I've created a similar version for my LX470, this time without any welding:
1. Replace the bolts at the lower control arm with a 3/8" pin:
"Is the pin strong enough?"
This is a low-grade pin from Lowes. I used the same exact pins on the front anti-sway bar on my 80 for almost a decade and they never failed. That said, you can google the shear strength of various grade and size bolts--and once you adjust for the pin having a full 3/8" diameter rather than a nominal diameter that includes the threads--you will find that a grade 2 3/8" pin is very very close to the shear strength of a grade 8 bolt of the same nominal diameter because it is thicker in actual diameter. Sorry, no links.
I've been driving like this for a few months--including off-road where I had the front suspension fully cross-loaded.
Important: To get this 3/8" pin to fit, I did have to drill the threads out of the captive nut on the bracket. No going back on this one.
2. To retain the disconnected bar I utilized existing bolts and holes that hold the front height sensor for the AHC system. My AHC system is long gone, so I don't need these parts. Not sure if the LC has these same bolts or not.
The bolt holes:
3. Something to retain the disconnected bar.
I'd like to figure out a classier solution, but I whipped this up with stuff I had in the garage. Maybe somebody can come up with something nicer going forward, but this works.
Small piece of angle steel, drilled for the bolts and cut with a slot:
4. Bolt onto the frame. Insert Voile ski strap. Anti-swar bar is out of the way.
Keep in mind that there is no force on the bar other than its dead weight. The strap only has to support the weight of the bar.
Without fully articulating the front end, I can't say for 100% certain that there is adequate clearance for the lower arm to compress to the bumpstop without contacting the free end of the anti-way bar link--but it looks like it should be just fine. The anti-sway bar is rotated up all the way until the central section has contacted the fiberglass skid plate, so I'm quite confident that there is adequate clearance. I'm headed to Moab next weekend, so I'll report back with details.
Important considerations:
If the central portion of the rotated anti-sway bar were to contact a rock and be pushed up, it would rotate the bar down against the strap (or whatever you've used to retain the bar). As long as I'm not dragging the figerglass skid across the rocks (wouldn't want to do that anyway), this this will not happen.
However, in the event of the arm being forced down against the lower control arm, it appears that all brake lines and sensor wires are out of the line of fire (NOT the case on the 80.)
Last but not least, it DOES work as a ~quick disconnect/reconnect with the following caveats:
You have to be on flat ground so the anti-sway bar is not loaded.
You have to lay on the ground and reach up behind the tire to greasy dirty parts.
You have to wiggle and put a little effort into getting the pins in and out.
It's probably something you'd want to do right before you hit the trail, and not out in the mud and dirt.
I can disconnect and reconnect both ends in my garage in less than 5 minutes.
It just takes some transition time, for off-camber work, in the seat to get to a trust place again...then all is mobetta.
I'm going to hook it back up this week and see how I feel about it reconnected. I can tell you that undulating roads are cushy now