have an OME 3” lift on “Sherman” (2001 Disco II) —751 springs up front and 781 springs with 1” spacers in the rear. I like the ride of the vehicle; I also like the lift—the truck looks aggressive (that’s my opinion… to each his or her own).

One of the questions I have asked a few times—to folks in our club and to folks on various “boards”—is... what sort of difference does having your sway bars disconnected with a 3” OME lift make? I’ve heard varying stories, but no definitively documented cases; hence, I decided to see what I could figure out on my own... besides, my wife is out of town... what a better reason to do "man stuff"?

The Experiment:

I took my truck over to Magnolia Marc’s. Marc has a Nissan forklift and a warehouse where I could conduct my "research." Basically, I set out to lift up one of Sherman’s wheels with the front sway bar connected and take some measurements... then disconnect the sway bar and take some more measurements and see what the difference was. I also wanted to check the brake lines and ABS wires at full flex to see if there was any stress on them as well.

Marc and I proceeded to lift the truck with his forklift... with and without the front sway bar connected.

The rear sway bar... picture to the right... had been permanently removed from the vehicle prior to this "investigation."

As you can see from the pictures, we were able to lift the front wheel a little less than 20” off the ground before the rear wheel came off the ground. We continued around the vehicle taking various pictures to use as a comparison. The pictures in the table below show the comparison. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves and let you make the call on your own.

Notes:

1. We originally did this experiment with the original equipment, but we didn't have a camera. I went back the following day to photographically capture what I was talking about.

2. And, make sure you read below regarding the even bigger difference it makes when the tire pressure is 25 psi. When we did this with 25 psi in the tires, the results were even more amazing.

You can click any of the images on this page to enlarge them. For the side-by-side comparison below, I have the right side opening in one popup window and the left side opening in another. This way you can compare two large pictures to each other if you like. A picture may get hidden behind this browser window...

Sway bars connected	Sway bars disconnected
19 1/2"	24 1/2"
53 1/2"	55 1/4"
42 1/4"	42 1/4"
39 3/4"	41"
32 3/4"	34 1/2"
46"	48"

I'm really impressed with the 5 additional inches of height on the raised wheel prior to the rear tire coming off the ground.

One thing I do want to point out: Marc and I took a long hard look at the brake lines and ABS wires to ensure that they would not be too stretched with the sway bars disconnected at full flex. We had the shocks completely bottomed out and neither the ABS wires nor brake lines were under any tension.

Though these results are impressive, there’s an even larger difference when the vehicle’s tires are aired down (this thought struck us when we didn’t have a camera available, but you get the idea from the pictures above). Interestingly enough, when the pressure in the tires is reduced from 35 psi to 25 psi, the results are even more dramatic.

We were able to lift the front tire to 25 1/2” before the rear tire came off the ground. Even more impressive was that there was an 8” difference in articulation between having the front sway bar connected and disconnected with only 25 psi as opposed to a 2" difference with 35 psi. Yes... 8".

Once again, we took a long hard look at the brake lines and ABS wires with this additional flex to ensure that they would not be over-stretched and neither were under any tension (Life good!).

Since I was extremely impressed with the results of the experiment (especially with the 25 psi results... I mean, let's face it, we air down on the trail in the first place), I decided to install quick disconnects on Sherman.

My Disclaimer:

I am not recommending you use these instructions to install JKS Quick Disconnects on your vehicle. My advice is to take your vehicle to an authorized dealer and have the disconnects installed by a professional.

The following is simply a documentary of how I installed my disconnects. If you decide to purchase and install any brand of disconnects and end up damaging your car... it's your fault...

Take it to an authorized dealer!

That said... if you are a club member, obviously I'll help you...

The Install:

I had done some reading on the DiscoWeb with respect to this topic and found some information on JKS Quick Disconnects for a Jeep TJ. With some slight modifications, these disconnects work perfectly. Below is the narrative of the installation:

The JKS Quick Disconnects needed are are follows:

JKS “Quicker Disconnects™”, TJ, 1997-03 w/ 2-1/2"-6" lift; Cherokee, 1984-01 w/ 3 1/2 - 6" lift; Grand Cherokee, 1993-98 w/ 4 1/2" - 6" lift Product Number: 2001 Price: $125 - $135.

The most important thing to do is put on some safety glasses and leave them on. I should have worn ear plugs for the grinding. I found I needed a hard hat as well because I smashed the crap out of my head more than one on that damned $G bumper...

I also wore gloves because I am constantly smashing or cutting my hands on some random piece of metal; the gloves help... and like my snorkel... they look cool!

I chose to get help. I employed the services of Dr. Josh Gorman (hehe). These aren't teeth, but... close enough. In addition to helping with turning wrenches and drilling and grinding, Josh also helped take the pictures.

The next thing is still safety related: we made sure to chalk my wheels and fully set my emergency brake.

Next, we removed my front tires and placed jack stands under the radius arms where the bottle jack is supposed to go for lifting the vehicle.

We used an 18 mm socket and a 16 mm wrench to remove the old OME links. One side was a complete bitch to get off, while the other came off extremely easily.

After removing the top, we removed the bottom. We used a T840 Torx and an 18 mm wrench to get it off. We had to hold the wrench steady while using the Torx.

Something to remember, since we were on the opposite side of the bolt-head, we had to "tighten" the end of the Torx... which was essentially loosening it.

(Does this make sense? "Righty-tighty, Lefty-loosy"... but since we were on the end of the bolt instead of the head of the bolt, "Righty-tighy" was actually loosening it.)

Similar to the top bolts, one was a bitch to get off while the other came off easily. We cheated and used an impact wrench on the Torx socket to "help."

Next we removed the sway bar with a 13 mm socket. Again, we cheated and used an impact wrench.

The second photo shows the link and sway bar removed.

The first picture shows the first modification that we had to make. See how the "strap" (as JKS calls it) does not go over the sway bar? The grinder fixed this problem.

The grinding required was minimal; hence, the structural integrity of the sway bar was in no way jeopardized. Essentially we just grinded off the rounded over sides on the sway bar until the strap fit properly.

The first picture shows the strap in the proper location.

Since we grinded the sway bar, we painted the bare metal with some Rust-Oleum High Performance Enamel to protect the metal.

Here's the second modification we had to make. See how the bolt on the stainless steel pin does not go through the existing hole on the axle bracket?

We had to drill it out just a smidgen (1/2" bit) to allow the bolt on the stainless steel pin to go through.

Once the hole was drilled and the bare metal painted, we installed the stainless steel pin ensuring the little hole for the lynch pin (the little pin with the ring that holds quick disconnect together) was horizontal to the ground per the manufacturer's recommendation.

The next thing we did was to dry fit everything together and see how it looked.

We placed the old OEM link and the new JKS side by side and unscrewed the two halves of the JKS until it was the same length at the original (pretty simple to do; we simply forgot to photograph that).

We also noticed a couple of "things" and made some adjustments:

First, we had to bolt the strap to the sway bar before we bolted the main assembly together because we had to get a 1/4" Allen wrench (I wonder who the hell Allen is?) in there to hold the bolt while tightening the nylon lock nut. Obviously if we had it all together, we would not have been able to get the Allen wrench in there.

Second, we noticed the hole in the sway bar was larger than the bolt and the hole in the strap, so Josh scrounged up a couple of washers and we put a washer on the bottom as well as the washer JKS provided for the top.

JKS says to use Loctite (or something similar) to the bolt holding the bottom of the strap to the main assembly, so we did.

The next thing we did was tighten up the jam nut holding the two halves of the quick disconnect together and then reinstall the sway bar.

The Quick Disconnects have two grease fittings on them. They do not come from JKS with grease in them; hence, we greased the fittings.

Here's a picture of the Quick Disconnect installed.

JKS sends two little "storage pins" to hold everything out of the way when the sway bar is disconnected. Apparently, there is a hole in a Jeep where these things mount and you simply bolt them in. Well, I don't drive a Jeep, so I thought maybe I would simply use a Bungee cord to hold them up... then I thought... "umm... no."

The issue is... there is no where to bolt these things on permanently without them being in the way of the sway bar. So I decided on the following: I decided to install a Riv-nut on each side of the vehicle and simply screw in the storage pins when I disconnected.

Now at this point you might be saying, "that is a pain." I thought that too, but the fact of the matter is... I have to get out of the vehicle to disconnect the sway bars; the extra minute it's going to take me to install these is irrelevant, and these are much nicer and more secure than Bungee cords for this application.

So...

I dug through my "bolt coffee can" and found two Riv-nuts. These can be a bitch to find and are not generally available at your local hardware store. I got mine from RoverTym a while ago and just happened to have two left.

(By the way, the picture quality goes to crap here because I am doing the "doing" and the "photoing" at the same time.)

I lifted the disconnected sway bar up as high as it would go and marked and drilled a hole on each side where my Riv-nut was to be installed.

Next I took a big hammer and beat the Riv-nut in the hole.

I then used a 1/2" socket and a 5/8" wrench to install the Riv-nut.

Note: I originally used a 13 mm socket because 1/2" is about the same as a 13 mm. This was where I needed the hard hat, because when the socket slipped off, my head slammed into the %$@#ing $G bumper (solid steel) and left me with a nice bump that hurts like hell even as I type this. Use a 1/2" socket.

As you can see above, the original bolt (2) for the storage pin (2) is a tad shorter than the upper bolt (2) I purchased at my local hardware store. I needed the extra length for the Riv-nuts because the threads of the Riv-nuts are set back about 1/4" when they are installed.

I installed and tried out my new storage pins. Works perfectly.

So, yes. Yes, I have to bolt the "sway bar storage pins" to the vehicle every time I disconnect. But like I said above, I have to get under the vehicle to pull the lynch pins and disconnect anyway; the extra minute it takes to screw in the storage pins on is irrelevant. I'll simply place the items above in my "off-road" Pelican case where I can easily get to them when it is time to go off-road.

By the way... you'll be happy to know I spent 5 hours detailing Sherman today. He is no longer all junky looking.

If you have any questions or need any help, let me know.

- Bill Mallin