I'd bet that almost every, if not every, new truck today has a sway bar under the rear. My '89 does, and it sure as heck is leaf sprung.

Dave

 

My 48 has a Volare front with the stock Volare sway bar and I put one on the rear. I never drove the truck with only the front but I would not have spent the money for the rear if I didn't think I needed it. I don't like wide tires (running 225:75/R15s) and I'm certainly not into high dollar shocks. The old truck doesn't corner like a sports car but I can take curves about as well as most modern cars. I think it improves the handling of my truck but what you do with yours is up to you...

 

Put a rear sway bar on to match a front bar if you want to reduce push and lean in corners, solid axle or not. They do work.
I added one to my ranger, and the difference in the twisties was very noticeable. They will add a bit of rear stiffness on a light rear truck, which you would notice going over irregular surfaces, but in my case, it was very minimal.
You do want to balance the front and rear bar. A rear bar that is too large can introduce oversteer situations, with the worst being snap oversteer.
No rear bar or a very small bar compared to the front usually translates to understeer.
Of course, spring rate, shocks, suspension setup all contribute to the overall handling and balance of a vehicle, so you have to experiment a bit when modifying a stock system.
YMMV

 

Didn’t really get an answer to that did you, mostly because there isn’t one.
But, ………..(ah hah, the infamous ‘but”) It doesn’t matter, make it fit. I used a front one off a 80 ish Firebird on the rear of a “other make” leaf spring car, turned upside down and backwards (it doesn’t care) and it worked well. The rear sway bar takes up space where the exhaust wants to go, but you can put one on just because you can or want to, its your truck, with all due respect and to the horror of engineering types you can heat and bend (no quench) OEM sway bars, just pig iron anyway.

 

Nope did'nt really get an answer, I am going to put bars on it regardless of what"s right or wrong. Was just hoping that some one had found some that would go on with out a huge pile of fabricating. My 96 f-350 has bars on both ends. so they must be on there for a reason. I thank everybody for your input.
Dan.

 

Hey AX here;s your quote,

"swaybar(s) are going to have little to no affect on body lean when cornering with parallel leaf suspension..."

So, what if your going with a front mono? does that make a difference? i've also, been told, if you run mono's on the front you have to change out the front shocks to shortes'...AX is this the case?

 

The major reason sways are now found used with leaf springs is because buyers demand a soft floating luxury car ride, especially with pickups and truck based SUVs. They are often driving them empty seldom loading them up to capacity. To give that ride the manufacturers use soft progressive springs with large compliant eye bushings reducing the spring's sway control capacity.
Let's look at what happens with a "classic" parallel leaf suspension on a solid axle is assemtrically loaded when the axle "seesaws" due to corner lean or terrain:
The spring is solidly attached to the axle and relatively solidly rotationally attached to the chassis at each end thru the spring eyes so the flat of the spring is parallel to the ground at rest. when the axle moves up on one end and down on the other, the spring perches are forced to an angle with the ground while the chassis mounts remain parallel or try to angle in the opposite direction. The opposing angles tries to twist the main leaf of the spring along the front to back axis. Since the spring is composed of flat leaves and is bent to a bow shape, it is very resistant to this twisting force and pushes the axle and chassis back into a parallel plane. Prove it to yourself, Take a length of say 1/8 x 2" flat bar stock 3-4 feet long and clamp on end flat to your work bench. grab the other end and move it up and down (normal spring action). Flexes easily. Now try twisting it. You may be able to twist it by applying a much greater force than what was required to flex it up and down. Now form the strip into a shallow bow and clamp the free end so it also cannot rotate. Grab the strip in the center and attempt to move it sideways or twist it. It will be extremely difficult to move it if you can move it at all, the larger the bow the more resistant it becomes. This is just mild steel (I assume you tried this with a piece of mild steel strap rather than spring steel) tempered spring steel will resist this twisting with many times the force.
Note that the narrower, thinner and flatter the main leaf becomes the less twist resistance it has, hence less "sway resistance", and the more necessity for additional sway control.
AFA the mono leafs: see last sentence in paragraph above.
Tpaered monoleafs are a special case since the twisting resistance is weakest and most concentrated at the thinnest part of the leaf. IMHO this concentration over a small area is what directly leads to the premature failure noted with monos.

The supplier saying that shorter shocks are required with the monos is due to the fact monos drop the chassis and tend to be "livelier" (more suspension travel) so the shock is more likely to bottom. The shock should never bottom before the suspension or the shock will be quickly destroyed.

 

excellent info as always Ax...thanks...