I know people with rock crawlers don't like swaybars because they limit flex. What about for milder off-road gigs, especially dual-purpose that in reality spend 80% of their time on pavement and another 15% on fairly benign trails? My camper build is going to be "dual-purpose" like I describe, and a little top-heavy as well. Should I bother finding one for the front? How about a custom one for the rear?

I have two '81 4x4 longbeds, one an SR5 and the other a base model. Both have these brackets that I assume are for the swaybar, but neither has the bar. Shouldn't the SR5 have one?

 

Rock crawlers use sway bars too but they're not what you see on stock vehicles... they're torsion bars of specific length and custom length arms... Currie, tk1 racing to name a few makers

check em out. I bought a tk1 for my truggy but ended up not using it and sold it to a Guy with a linked toy truggy Crawler.

 

They limit flex, but do they meaningfully help keep the rig upright when driving across a side slope, for instance? I won't be doing any hard cornering on pavement, but if there's any off-road benefit I might source some.

 

You are correct on mounting position. My '81 sr5 has a sway bar and it's one of your "dual-purpose" rigs. Find one in a junkyard and get quick disconnects like I did. Keeps her reasonable on the road and as soon as things get "flexy" I hop out and pull 4 pins (tractor style with the wire retainers) and remove the tubes between the axle and bar. I push up the end of the bar against the frame and the tension on the urathane bushings seem to hold out of the way until I pull it back down to hook it back up. Works great for me. Got them through NWOR years ago (I know, they're a bad word around here) and I think they had stiffer front sway bars as well as a coustom one for the rear. I don't know about them but might be nice with the top-heaviness of the camper.

 

After all these years of owning my '82 I finally removed my sway bar all together without any negative affects. For lack of a better discription, I removed a track bar(?). It connected to the axle parralel to the frame. Couldn't see having that with leaf springs.

My suspension is stock with original springs.

 

remove the sway bar for sure, i feel like it makes the ride nicer in a stock toyota.