Is anyone else feeling beaten to heck in their trucks with road driving? I swear, mine's getting worse, and seems the absolute worst on the hottest days.

I'm curious as to whether anyone would be interested in sharing info on comfy ride setups, setups that are still decent for off-road use, as well.

I have a few ideas about what's contributing to my rough ride.
Here's my current setup. If anyone else is interested, I'll document my adjustments and results.
Please feel free to contribute your own information and I'm open to suggestions on my own.

SETUP
VEHICLE: 1987 Toyota 4wd Xtracab
REAR SUSPENSION: Skyjacker 0-2" lift springs on rear w/poly bushings
FRONT SUSPENSION: 26mm Torsion Bars [color:"red"](edit: 25mm Torsion Bars)[/color]
NWOR sway bar with poly bushings
SHOCKS: KYB Monomax shocks all the way around
[color:"red"]TIRES & PRESSURE: forthcoming[/color]

ISSUES & THEORIES:
I'm pretty sure all my poly bushings are dry, thus limiting motion/travel. Those of you running poly bushings know that they need to be greased from time to time. Mine need grease.

I'm not sure my rear shocks are long enough. They were about 1" from fully extended when I installed them, so I think when I hit bumps, the rear bottoms out on extension.

I'm not sure my front torsion bars are correctly adjusted. Whenever I go over a speed bump or something, if I don't snail over it, it's like my suspension compresses slightly, and then springs back violently with a bang, almost. it's rough.

I can fly down gravel and uneven paths, though, and I find it odd that the truck feels almost smoother here. Over potholes and crossing shrink/swell grooves on the road though, and this thing's a nightmare.

PROPOSED FIXES:
I'm considering:
1. Greaseable shackles on the rear
2. Oiling the leaves
3. Greasing swaybar bushings
4. Checking tightness on swaybar endlinks (I understand that endlinks bushings that are too tight can contribute to rough ride)
5. Longer shocks on the rear
6. Checking for proper tension on torsion bars

Those torsion bars you have are only good with a v8 / heavy winch and bumper. theyre too stiff for a stock truck.
skyjacker's arent known for being smooth either.

I have the 26mm t-bars, and personally I like them. BUT I have a winch and a homemade bumper, it's not massive but probably in the 75 lb range w/o winch.
I actually run mine fairly "relaxed", e,g, only dialed a few cranks in from loose. This does seem to let them wander alot more, but decent shocks take care of that. Before doing a hard off-road race, I crank them up a bit so they are more preloaded and protect against the hard bumps.
I ditched my swaybar long ago, actually i wonder how that might be contributing to your problem.
How old are the shocks? That's sounds like a culprit here too.
I'm using the ProComps lift sprinsg in the back, with Blistens, the ride back tehre is great and nice and flexy offroad too. Unless your rear shocks are maxed out on regular road use, I'm not sure that going longer will make much difference... but you want them to ride righ taround teh middle of travel.

Going slightly off-topic, when you put on teh 26mm T-bars, did you find it added lift even before cranking them any? Mine seem to be re-indexed and it added an inch or two I wasn't expecting.

thanks for the input so far fellows.
I'd also like to make a DEHR!!! note here: ride quality changing depending on temperature? TIRE PRESSURE! I let out about 3-5psi and that helps a little. I hear people are charging tires with nitrogen now to avoid this problem.

I've thought about disconnecting my sway bar to see if it makes any difference. if I've learned anything, it's to test things like this one at a time.

shocks are fairly new, however, I'm pretty sure they're short on the rear. those Skyjackers were supposed to be stock height replacement springs, but they lift the rear 2" at least. I'm lucky if I'm getting 1" extension with the shocks I have on there, so yeah, I'm sure that's an issue. I was thinking about going Pro Comp last I was thinking about this. so you like them okay?

as for the t-bars, I think I just set them to, what is it, 14.5"? didn't seem lifted when I put them on. I just remembered that they're Sway-A-Way. looking them up on the site, I see they offer a 25mm bar, so I'm pretty sure that's what these ones are. if I remember correctly, the stock bars are only around 22mm?

Stock height is 13.5" - 14". Stock bar size 22mm as noted, a 26mm bar is nearly twice as stiff as stock:
http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/tech/torsion_bars/

The sway bar isn't going to effect the rough highway ride, so you can eliminate that. Do you have a lift dialed into the sway bars. Using them to lift a light weight rig usually results in a stiff ride, as well as the skyjacker 2" lift springs you have in the rear.

What was the tire pressure set at before you let out some air? What type of tires are you running? I set my tires at about 2.5lbs under what I run them at so once heated up they are at the right pressure.

Since you think teh shocks are bad, replace them with shocks that match the lift you have now, i.e., 2" longer than stock. If you are looking to spend about $200 on shocks, the sensitracs are about the bets you can buy for ride quality, if you are looking to spend about $100, Napa has them for about $25each. IIRC the T100 rear shocks are about 2" longer than the trucks, so they will work for the rear, i don't remember what I used on the front, I had the parts counter person look up the stock size in the book and then find one that was 2" longer for the ball-joint spacers I run in the front of my '91.

You could also consider replacing the sway-a-ways w/stock and use ball joint spacers instead.

How many leaves did skyjacker use in the replacement packs? If only used the same as stock, you could rebuild the pack using longer springs, use longer shackles to flatten out the springs some, or through a couple 100lbs of weight in the bed.

iirc 4crawler stated suzuki samurai stock shocks are what you used for the front with BJ spacers.

If the lift springs for the truck are THICK leafs then it will ride like a bucket of bolts-to stiff. T-bars as already mentioned are stiffer as well.

If the shocks are older than 40k or so replace them, I replace mine every 50k.

As for tire pressure, if you want to get exact you can draw a chalk line across the tread and drive straight at different pressures till the line wears off even. Or you can do it the guessing way and drop about 10-12lbs from max pressure. IE my T100 rides on 265/75/R16 bridgestone dueler revos, max press is 50, I run 35 up front and 37 rear and it works great.

My truck also rode VERY hard and had this insane vibration till I figured out all the cab mounts and motor mounts were shot as well as the mounts for the front axle setup. Replace all of them and WOW it rides smooth.

I do now, they ride nice and are very flexy. The overload itself is arched, which worried me at first b/c I was afraid they'd be riding on it and be harsh, but no.
...but they took a little work to get "right". Now mind you I got them slightly used so they were probbaly a little broken in already...
They run just a little short for the lift they give, so w/ the stock shackles, my shackles were at about a 5-oclock position, not steep eough. Low and behold, during a 4x4Cross pre-run, I inverted one, pinned against the frame... nice PITA. So I ended up having to move the shackle mount forward a little, and run a longer shackle. There's a thread on here about the whole fiasco.

I have no idea what brand my T-bars are but the calipers measure 26mm.

So I've learned a few things the past couple of weeks.

I've been looking into outfitting my truck with an OME setup. I'm pretty impressed so far with what I've been reading and with the guys I've spoken with at ARB. OME has a few options in their kits. The one that appeals to me is the light system that provides all around control and ride comfort, and still performs nicely while loaded up. Practical, with attention to finer details, as opposed to over the top, burly lifts that really don't make much sense for daily driver types.

The "kit" I'm interested in pretty much replaces all the main suspension components on my truck:

• Rear Leaf springs
  Front Torsions
  Steering Dampener
  Front & Rear Shocks
  Greasable Shackles
  Greasable Pins
  Bushings

That kit costs around $1k - shudder - which got me thinking: maaaybe I should see just what exactly I can do with my current setup.

I took a look at my springs. Polyurethane bushings looked like they were in there pretty tight. I'm pretty sure they're making it difficult for the springs to work as freely as they should. The leaves looked pretty dry at the contact surfaces, and, if I remember correctly, one of the friction pads was missing when the springs arrived. I wondered just how much the friction between each leaf could be contributing to my rough ride.

There are three leaves plus the overload. Each one seems pretty burly. I weigh around 185 lbs. and can jump up and down on my rear bumper and I might be seeing an inch deflection. Yeah, it's that stiff.

I loosened the nuts at the shackles and frame hangers to give those poly bushings a little room to move around. They weren't really overly tight or anything; the bushings just looked a little compressed.

Next, I jacked up the rear by my tow hitch, and let the axle sag as I jacked it up. Then I wedged a prybar between the leaf ends and shot in some old NAPA chain and cable lube that I had laying around. Wasn't really sure how well this was gonna work, so while it's not really my first choice of lubes for this application, I was just trying to see if it would make any difference. I think I might go back in in a week or so with some marine grease.

Then I just sprayed that lube around the bushing areas at the hangers and shackles and gave everything a wipe.

Took it for a little drive. I was surprised at the difference. It wasn't night and day, but it was better. The springs are still way too stiff for driving around unloaded, but loosening the shackles and lubing between the leaves seems to have freed the rear end up a bit to move around as needed. It seemed to improve the more I drove it. I can only assume that was the lube working into the bushings, and the bushings themselves may have been shifting/settling into their new, more relaxed limits.

I began to think a bit about how a leaf spring is supposed to work. Never really gave it much thought before. When the spring compresses, it lengthens. Since it's rigid at the frame hanger, that means the shackle has to rotate out to accommodate the additional length, but since my bushings were too tight, I'm not sure how much freedom my shackles had. I did see some red dust accumulated there. A spring with a shackle that can't rotate to accommodate the length of the spring as it compresses pretty much, in theory, can prevent the spring from compressing at all. If the shackle can't move freely, it's like you almost might as well just bolt the axle right to the frame. Anyway, I'm reasonably certain now that the shackles can do their job a bit better.

I'm wondering now whether I should try removing one of my leaves to see if that helps with my ride quality. Obviously my load capacity will be diminished, but it's not like I'm carrying loads of bricks or concrete all the time. With only three leaves plus overload, I'm not really sure which to pull. It's between the bottom or middle, obviously. I would assume the lower, right?

FWIW I assembled some poly bushings and used antisieze on them to lubricate them. Worked very well for years on my old car.