Sway Bar Issues – Jeep JK Rubicons

Jeep Rubicons have some great features and are great trail rigs, BUT, the Rubicon sway bar disconnect sucks. It is a common problem that affects many Jeeps. It can create issues far past the sway bar itself, and is an extremely expensive part.

We had a 2014 Rubicon straight die coming off a trail. It took two weeks and three great mechanics to finally diagnose as being an electrical issue sourced from the sway bar electronics.

As we tore into the sway bar we found:

the (supposedly waterproof) electrical connector filled with water, the actuator itself completely filled with water and the gearing within the sway bar completely rusted. 

This is not an uncommon issue and Jeep knows it. Just about every Rubicon owner who wheels at all will eventually deal with it – and then have to make a choice. The options are, for the most part, expensive. 

When faced with a faulty sway bar disconnect you can:

• Replace the actuator, or more commonly, the entire unit. Cost is around $2000!! And it doesn’t solve a thing
• Move to a Teraflex or similar sway bar system. Cost is around $1000.  Unfortunately, it’s installation is anything but “bolt-on”; it utilizes two torsion bars that are housed in bushings within a frame bracket, which must be cut to gain access. If front bumpers are already installed, this makes the install even more time consuming.
• Either use the rusted together Rubicon sway bar, or get a solid sway bar from a junkyard. Move to manual disconnects at the sway bar link (essentially turning back into a sport with a modification). Cost is around $150 for the quick disconnect kit, plus whatever the cost of the salvaged solid sway bar might be (if needed)
• Go with a manual disconnect that replaces the actuator. Make sure it uses the existing Rubicon sway bar, like the EVO Manufacturing No Limits Manual Disconnect, or EVO No-Limits on Demand (an air actuated version). 

When facing our rusted sway bar, and completely destroyed actuator and electronics we elected to go with the EVO Manual Disconnect. 

This was only after completely reconditioning the sway bar gearing. Once you break the sway bar open, you will find each half of the sway bar has a gear. Connected with a larger gear that slides back and forth, either engaging both gears (thus locking it together) or just one (thus disengaging the sway bar and allowing both to move free).

Any, or in our case, all of these gears were rusted and damaged.

To fix this, you need:

several hours, patience, and good hand strength.

First, and most obviously pull everything apart and clean everything out with degreaser.

Then we used a coarse sandpaper to begin to remove the rust and grime from the outer gearing and fork that moves back and forth. This just takes time. Starting at 80 grit, we moved slowly to 1,000 grit. It was never completely clean, as pitting has occurred in some spots, but with care and patience you can nearly completely restore the gearing.

Installing the EVO Manual Disconnect was very straightforward at this point; the only hiccup was the provided spring was giving too much force to the plate to allow the gear to fully engage both gears upon re-engagement. After a call with EVO, we cut the spring.