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How Tight Should a Trailer Sway Bar Be?

How Tight Should a Trailer Sway Bar Be?

Towing a trailer can be a real challenge or a walk in the park. That all depends on how much you can stabilize and synchronize both vehicles.

The first step is balancing the weight. Next, you should make sure that you’re staying within the loading limits of the towing vehicle. Also, the coupling between the trailer and the towing vehicle should be significantly sturdy to stand all the different forces that it’s subjected to.

One more thing remains after all that; which is sway. Trailers have a habit of moving sideways as you change direction or if the road is slippery. The same thing happens if there’s a powerful cross-wind. Moreover, an unbalanced loading or mismatched trailer elevation could cause sway as well.

Speeding with a swaying trailer is never a good idea. That’s why a sway bar is used to limit these unwanted dynamics. But how tight should a trailer sway bar be? You can read all about it in the next sections.

How Does the Trailer Sway Bar Work?

The addition of a sway control kit to the weight distribution hitch limits excessive lateral movement significantly. This is achieved through a mechanism quite similar to brakes. Anytime an increased sideways sway is detected, the sway mechanism steps in, and counters that tendency.

This ‘braking action’ is designed to limit the movement of the trailer, but not to the point that it becomes stiff while turning. This takes a bit of fine-tuning of the trailer sway bar. Actually, it might take a few trial-runs to reach the best adjustment.

Sway Control Bar

Weight Distribution Hitch Kit

How to Adjust the Tension of the Trailer Sway Bar?

Most good quality sway control kits come with ON/OFF handles that engage and disengage the sway control bar. Also, to adjust how tight it is.

Typically, you’d need to follow the following procedure to adjust the tightness of the sway bar:

  1. Before attaching the sway bar, release all the tension by turning the ON/OFF handle counterclockwise.
  2. Attach the socket of the bar to the slider ball, then join them with a spring clip. Use another clip to secure the other end.
  3. You’d need to increase the tension of the ON?OFF handle by turning it clockwise.
  4. An ideal tension is often achieved when the handle becomes firm and is positioned parallel to the body of the sway bar.
  5. To check that the sway bar has the right settings, back the trailer slowly to both sides into a jackknife alignment. A second person should observe the trailer, the coupling, and the sway bar.
  6. The sway bar shouldn’t be too compressed or overextended beyond its limits.
  7. Make sure that the sway control isn’t too close to the bumpers or the trailer frame.
  8. You can adjust the tension until the towing feels right.
  9. Some trailers are too large for a single sway control kit and might require installing two.
  10. A road test is the final quality check for the sway control kit. That’s where the fine-tuning happens.

How Tight Should a Trailer Sway Bar Be?

There’s a bit of a Goldilocks situation here. That’s because a loose bar wouldn’t control the lateral wandering that much, while an extra tight adjustment would make the drive too stiff. It would put an extra load on the towing car, and performing a turn smoothly would be literally impossible.

Luckily, you have the flexibility to change the tension in the sway bar until you reach a satisfactory towing experience. We wish that these things be fully automated, and detect the required tension on their own. But until these gadgets become commonplace, we’d have to rely on our sensibilities.

The ON/OFF handle is pretty straight forward, and as soon as you turn it a few times, you’d find that there’s a clear response in the level of sway control. Keeping the handle aligned with the bar is often a good position for optimal performance. But, quite often we need to make changes.

Why Would You Need to Increase the Tension of the Sway Bar?

Towing is a complicated business that involves many factors. And to make sure that you have the optimal level of control for lateral movement, you’d need to consider the following points:

  • Do you often use high speeds while driving the towing vehicle?
  • Does your vehicle have power steering?
  • Is the road too rough or too slippery?
  • Is the loading of the trailer a bit much?
  • Is there an excessive wind hitting the trailer from the sides?
  • Was the last time you adjusted the tension of the sway bar more than a year?

If the answer to these questions is in the affirmative, then it would be best to increase the tension of the sway kit. A quarter-turn clockwise should do the trick.

And of course, redo the visual checks, fine-tuning, and road testing all over again.

How Often Should You Readjust the Sway Bar?

The sway bar breaks-in after around 1000 miles. At this point, you should remove it, and get it cleaned up nicely. You can use steel wool or a wire brush to remove all the dirt and debris, then wipe it clean and reinstall it.

The slide bar should be cleaned in a similar manner every 10,000 miles. And each time, you’d need to readjust the tension in the manner stated above.

In Conclusion

A well-adjusted sway control kit can make for a very smooth ride, even while towing a heavy trailer. You can install one or two sway bars as needed, and fine-tune their tension as needed.

As always, use caution every step of the way. If you need to do any extra welding or metalwork on the sway bar, you’d need to solicit the services of a certified welding shop. Remember not to paint or lubricate the slide bar at all.

There are times you might need to disengage the sway bar entirely, like towing on gravel or on snow-covered roads. Trailers with surge brakes are also not the best candidates for installing sway control kits.

Finally, there are several factors to consider as you figure out how tight should a trailer sway be. Starting with the load distribution of the trailer, moving on to the type of towing vehicle you’d be driving, the quality of the road, all the way to what the weather is like on that given day.