C303 Front sway bar for parabolics

[dokatd]

Just thought I would post this for anyone interested. I have found my 2 leaf parabolics to be excessively soft after working them fairly hard. My truck has excessive body roll that just makes it uncomfortable to drive regularly. And since my C303 is just short of my daily driver I had to make a change. I was considering changing back to stock springs or over valve my shocks (helps but is not a real solution). I even considered air bags and maybe an add a leaf. The add a leaf would probably be a pretty good solution but I ended up choosing to go with a sway bar as it would cure my roll and not add any ride height. So long story short I added a TK1 Racing 36” crawler rate sway bar. This requires minor fabrication skills and maybe some light machine work at the end of the day to clearance a part (haven’t done that yet). Anyways, the sway bar has made the truck much more enjoyable to drive regularly and honestly much safer. Here are my two lame pics. The last one is the lower tab I had to design and weld to the axle housing.

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[Jim Molloy]

KC,
Did you consider the axle rap solution that Jon Davy designed for the aftermarket parabolic springs?
Take care.
Jim

[dokatd]

I did, and I have an alternate solution for that as well, but a traction bar won’t cure body roll. The truck was borderline unsafe due to the low spring rates of “broken in” 2 leaf parabolics. I could certainly increase the dampening of the shocks, but again that’s not a solution either as the amount of body roll will still be there through a sustained turn. A good friend has the 3 leaf and he is complaining of body roll as well.

There is a part of me that wishes I had kept the old springs, but the parabolics do make for a nice ride otherwise. The truck drives like a coil spring truck now and the sway bar tames the roll.

[VinceAtReal4x4s]

Nice. Any thoughts on having parabolics only on the front, for example?

[dokatd]

Funny you say that!! I actually ran around like that for months before I put the backs in. It does handle well in that configuration. Probably a good setup for someone that loads up a ton of gear. Another option could be replace the bump stops with air bags I suppose. I may actually go with 2.5” air shocks all around to allow fine tuning of my final rates. This will require some mods to the shock mounts though.