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A Panhard Bar (also called Panhard Rod, J-Bar or track bar) is a component of a cars suspension system that provides lateral location of the axle. Originally invented by the Panhard automobile company of France in the early twentieth century, this device is still widely used to this day.

While the purpose of the suspension is to allow the wheels to move vertically with respect to the body, it is undesirable to allow them to move forward and backwards, or from side to side. It is the unwanted side to side movement that the pan hard bar prevents. A panhard bar is made of a rugged bar running sideways in the same plane as the axle, connecting one end of the axle to the cars frame on the opposite side of the vehicle. The bar is attached on both end with pivots that permit it to swivel up and down only, so that the axle is, in turn, allowed to move up and down in a vertical plane only. This does not effectively locate the axle longitudinally, it is usually used in conjunction with trailing arms which locate the axle in the longitudinal direction. This is normally only used with coil spring suspensions.

The advantage of the Panhard rod is its simplicity. Its major disadvantage is that the axle must necessarily move in an arc relative to the body, with the radius equal to the length of the Panhard rod. If the rod is too short, there will be excessive sideways movement between the axle and the chassis at the end of  the suspensions travel;  to effectively eliminate side to side motion on a narrowed chassis a suspension design that is similar but dramatically reduces the sideways component of the axle's vertical travel is the Watts Linkage which Is a section of itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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