Ok, here we go! Everything went well with the sway bars, but I discovered a few other problems along the way. My Dad helped me with the install, and provided the heated garage space. While this job could be done alone, it probably went a little faster and easier with 2 people.
We decided to start with the front bar, which meant taking off the skid plate first. Pretty straight forward, 4 bolts and some rust hold it in place. For fun here's a picture of what gets in my way every oil change... lol.
Heres the new front bar just out of the packaging. It is the same diameter as the OE one, but solid instead of hollow steel.
I didn't get any pics of the old bar coming out, but its pretty straight forward, 2 bolts on each bushing mount and 2 end link bolts. Here is the front one back in, I did put some grease in the bushings to help eliminate any squeaking as others have mentioned, but I did not tap them for zerk fittings.
Ok, the front bar is in, the skid plate goes back on, and on to the rear!
My Dad's first comment on seeing the rear bar was "wow why did they even bother with this?" There is definitely a huge difference in going to the Addco, bar, 9/16" hollow up to 1" solid steel. Here is a comparison picture:
No skid plate in the way back here, but I did replace the rear end links due to one having a bad bushing. The new ones I ordered from rock auto, they appear to be the same diameter as stock but they are noticeably heavier, so I think they must be solid instead of hollow. I also put on the energy suspension grease-able bushings, I'm not sure if they Addco supplied bushings would squeak but I heard they can and I didn't want to deal with that later. Here's a shot of the bar installed with new end links and bushings:
There's a little less clearance around the rear diff now, but the sway bar would probably have to come off anyway to do any major diff work.
Now, time for the test drive. Whoa! I could already feel the difference hitting the end of my Dad's driveway, which is kinda steep. Much less "sway" lol as you hit the street. I zoomed around a few off ramps, this thing definitely handles corner 700% better. I would recommend these bars to anyone who drives their Jeep on the road and likes to use the gas pedal during turns. This is a very easy mod to do as well, we only had to jack the vehicle up to remove the rear upper end link bolts, the rest we did on the ground.
Now, of course everything can't go perfectly, but other than the expected rusty hardware we only ran into one other problem. The Mevotech end links I bought for the rear, the bottom bushing sleeve wasn't big enough to fit the original bolt back through, but by a very small amount. We filed off some small burrs in the sleeves, cleaned up and smoothed out the bolt shank, and we were back in business. A little anti seize on the bolt and everything went back together perfectly. Gotta be careful with the stuff you buy online sometimes.
So, to answer the question in the thread title, EVERYBODY needs addco sway bars! IMO lol