Total Cost Involved Sway Bar Install - Body Roll

A pneumatic air grinder with a coarse disc was used to trim off the rough spots and round the edges off of the mounting plates. The next step was to drill and tap holes for the mounting bolts.

As opposed to a drill-press, Steve used a handheld Snap-on pneumatic drill, and to avoid misalignment (mounting bolts screwing in at an angle) made sure he was drilling at exactly 90 degrees into the steel plates.

It is a bad practice not to use a cutting fluid and cut threads dry. There are a lot of good cutting fluids such as Relton Rapid Tap available on the market. KA Custom prefers to use Tap Magic because of its heavy foam.

As with drilling, it was equally important to ensure the tap was held at exactly 90 degrees and then threaded in a half-turn at-a-time and then backed out to clear the new threads of shavings. Notice how the Tap Magic foam adheres to the area being tapped.

Another good practice that helps to eliminate future problems is to check everything bolts together properly before attempting to install it on the truck.

This is how the hole in the left and right lower control arms appeared after being located and drilled.

Steve bolted the endlinks into the left and right lower control arms, and then was ready to handle attaching the mounting plates he fabricated.

Steve tack-welded the sway bar into place at every point before moving forward and completing the welds.

The best way to prepare for tack-welding the mounting plates on was to be able to do the job hands-free and use an adjustable stand to position the sway bar into place.

As Steve completed each weld he double-checked the sway bar to make sure nothing had moved due to welding.

Notice the aluminum pillars were rocked in at an angle and then clamped down tight upwards against the frame.

A quick cleanup with a grinder and blast of black spray paint and the job was done. A test drive proved installing the front sway bar cured the problem. If there was still too much body roll the next step would have been to install a rear sway bar.