sleeoffroad
Supporting Vendor
Would if it still had swaybars 
Sway bar disconnect
- Thread starter Photoman
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
All the more reason to torch the one you took off! 
it would be interesting to find the tensile strength of the steel used in the bar at any rate. probably a 11 or 12 series hardened steel. about the only thing that would weld it and hold would be some e1118 and if memory serves that requires some pretty good pre heat to allow it to work.
sorry just had a thought here.
Bill,
have you thought of threading the cut ends of the sway bar (male) and then either fabbing a sleeve or hollowing out the tractor shaft to allow for the female thread to engae inside? you would have to have pretty precise thread counts to make it seat properly but if you threaded in opposite direction on either side it would not come lose.
Well maybe not the best idea but it solves the welding concern.
Dave
sorry just had a thought here.
Bill,
have you thought of threading the cut ends of the sway bar (male) and then either fabbing a sleeve or hollowing out the tractor shaft to allow for the female thread to engae inside? you would have to have pretty precise thread counts to make it seat properly but if you threaded in opposite direction on either side it would not come lose.
Well maybe not the best idea but it solves the welding concern.
Dave
The most promising design I came up with was to simply cut the sway bar, then spline each tip and have an internally splined collar you'd manually slide back and forth. Obviously due care for using a large number of splines (max contact area) and quality matching (even spline pressures) would be key. Basically regard it as an axle spline setup. This means your physical connection AND the sliding mechanism are combined for simplicity and strength - good attributes for an experiment and for field use.
I don't know what those tractor parts were setup to drive in terms of their peak torque rating, but it might be a safe bet they're inadequate and setup to drive a blade, pump or other comparatively light torque use.
I don't know what those tractor parts were setup to drive in terms of their peak torque rating, but it might be a safe bet they're inadequate and setup to drive a blade, pump or other comparatively light torque use.
- Thread starter
- #25
Thanks to all for comments and suggestions.
FWIW these shafts are the PTO shafts for tractors up to at least 135 HP. 1 3/8-6 spline. They use the same shafts on the powered implements. One of the ones I used came off an 8 foot rotary mower (bush hog or brush hog to some). Tractor HP is generally PTO HP not motor HP. So a 100HP tractor has 100HP at the PTO. I have a 90" roto tiller that goes 12" deep which takes a good bit of HP and never have had a problem with PTO breakage.
There are more elegant solutions to a sway bar disconnect. My idea was to use junk I had around that would be off the shelf for others and see how it worked out.
Bill
FWIW these shafts are the PTO shafts for tractors up to at least 135 HP. 1 3/8-6 spline. They use the same shafts on the powered implements. One of the ones I used came off an 8 foot rotary mower (bush hog or brush hog to some). Tractor HP is generally PTO HP not motor HP. So a 100HP tractor has 100HP at the PTO. I have a 90" roto tiller that goes 12" deep which takes a good bit of HP and never have had a problem with PTO breakage.
There are more elegant solutions to a sway bar disconnect. My idea was to use junk I had around that would be off the shelf for others and see how it worked out.
Bill
I still think it is a valid idea,
I vote you go for it and report back on how it works, oh wait that would mean you have to put your truck together again........ might be a while.
I think it might be beneficial for a drive to site type rig, I still think my thought from late last night sounds like the easiest approach (threading) the forces will be on the radial axis so the more I think about trying to weld this the less it sounds like a good idea.
keep going ahead Bill,
Your truck is a testament to backyard engineerign at a level most of us dream about. whats the worst case scenario? it breaks... not like it will be flopping around down there as this is not a mount point and there will still be two points mounted on either side. I understand it could cause some issues at high speed if it breaks but that just means that you test it on a trail engaged and with your truck fully loaded. I am not claiming to be an engineer here but I think it has serious potential.
Dave
I vote you go for it and report back on how it works, oh wait that would mean you have to put your truck together again........ might be a while.
I think it might be beneficial for a drive to site type rig, I still think my thought from late last night sounds like the easiest approach (threading) the forces will be on the radial axis so the more I think about trying to weld this the less it sounds like a good idea.
keep going ahead Bill,
Your truck is a testament to backyard engineerign at a level most of us dream about. whats the worst case scenario? it breaks... not like it will be flopping around down there as this is not a mount point and there will still be two points mounted on either side. I understand it could cause some issues at high speed if it breaks but that just means that you test it on a trail engaged and with your truck fully loaded. I am not claiming to be an engineer here but I think it has serious potential.
Dave
Bill,
As always, I applaud your continuing efforts - just don't want to see 'ya get hurt. I don't know what the gearing is, but a 100hp direct drive PTO shaft would be wimpy in torque rating compared to say an axle on a truck with a 212hp engine and 4:27 axles and a torque converter.
What about a quick disconnect that did not involve the high torque twisting part of the sway bar? For instance, a disconnect that releases one end of the bar, yet secures it in a way it will not damage anything when disconnected. This way, your engineering challenge is merely strong fasteners rather than a horrendous torque fitting.
DougM
As always, I applaud your continuing efforts - just don't want to see 'ya get hurt. I don't know what the gearing is, but a 100hp direct drive PTO shaft would be wimpy in torque rating compared to say an axle on a truck with a 212hp engine and 4:27 axles and a torque converter.
What about a quick disconnect that did not involve the high torque twisting part of the sway bar? For instance, a disconnect that releases one end of the bar, yet secures it in a way it will not damage anything when disconnected. This way, your engineering challenge is merely strong fasteners rather than a horrendous torque fitting.
DougM
