Traction / Ladder Bar Talk

[NightHawk]

Hello Everyone,

 

One of my winter projects this year is to refresh some aspects of the truck and I would like to tackle the rear axle sway/wrap in an effort to improve traction & reduce the wear on the other drive-train items from the pinion shift.  I have spent several hours searching and cannot find a traction / ladder bar setup for our trucks that has a front swing shackle as to not limit suspension travel.  Prior to me fabricating something, does anyone have any links to a company that offers a front swing shackle type traction / ladder bar setup for our truck?

 

Thanks in advance

[Wild and Free]

Only reasons to have a ladder or traction bar would be to eliminate axle hop when spinning on low traction surfaces or if you are power pulling and or drag racing to hold the pinion angle correct to prevent high torque spring wrap up and release same concept as wheel hopping on loose material.

I ran tuff country ladder bars on my 02 when i power pulled and drag races they had bushings in both ends and I had zero issues with them in off road situations where I needed flex which i did a lot. I purposely stayed away from the traction bar setups with heim joint ends because my rig was a daily driver and it saw a lot of gravel and salted roads and heim joints are known to wear out with constant movement if they are not greasable.

[Killer223]

i don't know of any made for these trucks, but one could make other work very easily.

ones like these could replace the factory block,

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Lakewood-21720-Heavy-Duty-Leaf-Spring-Traction-Bars-/200720316138

 

one like this wouldn't be very hard to fab up on your own, or even spend the cash and install.

 

http://www.chassisunlimited.com/product/axle-components/leaf-springs/leaf-springs/traction-bar-kit.html

 

 

[NightHawk]

2 hours ago, Wild and Free said:

Only reasons to have a ladder or traction bar would be to eliminate axle hop when spinning on low traction surfaces or if you are power pulling and or drag racing to hold the pinion angle correct to prevent high torque spring wrap up and release same concept as wheel hopping on loose material.

I ran tuff country ladder bars on my 02 when i power pulled and drag races they had bushings in both ends and I had zero issues with them in off road situations where I needed flex which i did a lot. I purposely stayed away from the traction bar setups with heim joint ends because my rig was a daily driver and it saw a lot of gravel and salted roads and heim joints are known to wear out with constant movement if they are not greasable.

 

The aspect of greaseable is something that makes a lot of sense for street use and now I will make sure to keep that aspect in mind when searching/building.  However I disagree with you on the purpose of ladder or traction bars on a DD/street truck, as the leaf springs can twist under load during DD/towing conditions.  The spring wrap up due to high torque is why I wish to add them, as I can feel the draintrain loading/unloading more as the power has been increased, even with just the little 65hp extra.

 

Check out this video, I was surprised at how much movement on stock horsepower.

 

 

 

[Wild and Free]

I will say that during DDing it made the power transfer seem a lot smoother once I added them.  The wrap up in the video would be a lot less if it was loaded down fairly heavy too as the springs would be compressed so that alone would take some of the wrap up you see out of the equation too. Most of what you see is what the rear shackles are designed to allow.