What are you doing to your rig - the continuing saga

I've got a set of RK leaf springs that are a little over 3.5" of lift. With the 3" shackles that I asked for, I netted another 3/4" - 1" of lift, putting me right around 4.5" of lift. (I measured 10.75" from rear axle - frame.) Normally that shackle conversion comes with 4" shackles, I specifically requested the 3" shackles to lessen the amount of final lift. I measured it before I put my tire carrier and rear tire back on and drove around, so I may have dropped down a bit to a final height of 4" -ish. My target final lift was 4".
 
So I've heard of leafs sagging over time, but this takes the cake. I was looking at my shackle angles this morning and saw they were really steep. So much so that the spring eye has hit the upper mount at least once. Got out the tape measure and saw that my rear springs have sagged almost 2" in a week. Wow!
 
95 Chevy C1500 front brake hoses, 96 Dodge Dakota V8 4wd rear brake hose, pads, rotors, lots of PBlaster, and a few sawzall blades. That's right, lift and new axles going in.
 
SolarBell said:
Installed my new rear shackle conversion and Bilstein shocks. Now to figure out why it rides twice as stiff as before rather than smoother. :dunno:

12+-+1
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Doug...... You've lost lift because this shackle angle is way wrong. It's encouraging your leaf packs to stretch out rather than support weight. Shackle angle should be more than 90 degrees but not by much.... Say 1/2" to 1" back from 90 degrees.... If that makes sense.

I went to the battlement fab site and their pics of this set up looks just like yours does....... Way too steep in my opinion. Is it possible that the bracket that the upper shackle eye mounts too could be turned around?
 
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SolarBell said:
So I've heard of leafs sagging over time, but this takes the cake. I was looking at my shackle angles this morning and saw they were really steep. So much so that the spring eye has hit the upper mount at least once. Got out the tape measure and saw that my rear springs have sagged almost 2" in a week. Wow!
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Have you checked to see if your new hanger has moved? The bracket has that slot in it so you can adjust the angle of your shackle, it might be possible that your bolts worked loose and the bracket has slid forward making you lose your height.

I'd first check that out, and then once you get the shackle angle you are looking for, put some tack welds on each corner of that bracket so it cannot move.
 
Agreed. Imo you want the shackle approximately perpendicular to the leaf spring at ride height.
 
90deg shackle angle???? You guys are smoking crack. While I will agree his shackle is too steeply angled 90deg would be terrible. He needs a 60-70deg angle with the spring eye of the shckle being farther back than the frame side. This will allow the leafspring room to stretch upon compression and allow for more droop during extension.
 
adrenalinepirate said:
Dutch how much lift are you going to be at?
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Should be at about 4.5" of lift. Its a used RC 4.5" add a leaf lift kit I got from a guy here. He gave me the coils, lower control arms, and factory leafpacks w/ the add-a-leaves installed. I then picked up some 5150's for the front and Rancho 9000 adjustable's for the rear, an RE adj panhard bar, and some 1-1.5" boomerang shackles. All used and for a total of about 350$. Only major upgrade I want to source is some 5150 or 5100's for the rear, but the Rancho's will work for now.

I'm in the process of posting pic in the build thread for the XJ.
 
DutchVDub said:
90deg shackle angle???? You guys are smoking crack. While I will agree his shackle is too steeply angled 90deg would be terrible. He needs a 60-70deg angle with the spring eye of the shckle being farther back than the frame side. This will allow the leafspring room to stretch upon compression and allow for more droop during extension.
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Agreed! 90 makes for a shitty ride and flex brings the suck as well. I personally really like the brackets above, once you get it all dialed in it makes a world of difference.
 
Thanks guys. The hanger didn't move, I checked that first. It's got a lot of adjustability so I can pretty much dial in whatever angle I want it to be at. The weird thing is that when I first set the angle it was about 50*, then it settled very quickly to be really steep, close to 30*. I've got some options now about what to do with the springs and after those work out I'm going to adjust the shackles to ride at around 60* - 65*.
 
Shackle angles. The ever popular point of contention.

What I will say is that a 90* angle is completely inappropriate. Not only will the ride be like an empty dump truck but, you will have almost no flex. I was raised to believe that a 45* angle was optimum for ride and a 60* was optimum for flex. The more the shackle can move the better.

At 90* the down travel of the spring is going to be severly compromised. At 45*, the compression will be compromised over the 60* angle but obviously the extension will be increased to the limit of the shock as the shackole has more room to move.

Personally, I run the shackle somewhere between 45* and 60* (Believe it or not, I haven't mearured it. Those that know me should recoil, in horror, at this revelation) as a compromise as the Heep is my DD... I purchased shackle relocation brackets to correct the 90* issue I had after installing the lift.

It rode like the shocks has been replaced with solid rods...

Here are a couple of shots. This is with the original axle and the factory rear sway bar was still in place...
98Flex5.jpg


And fully flexed, three tires on the ground. Bad shot, I know, but that is what you get from Kids...
98Flex7.jpg
 
I can't look at o-guage's rig, it makes me nostalgic...
 
Got my tube doors all finished up...well pretty close. I had to run to Home Depot for work last night, so I just grabbed some foam from them to wrap the doors with while I was there. I was originally just going to use some zip ties to hold it on there, but the foam tears pretty easy, so I might wrap it entirely in black electrical tape.

tubedoor1.jpg


tubedoor2.jpg


I also cut off the brackets for my tail lights since they were all beat to hell from rocks, and the lights themselves needed to be replaced. So I ordered these...they should look quite a bit better than the old ones.

yhst-5253399658814_2196_15838724.jpg


And to top the cake, I ordered up one of these bad boys in a 20" flavor to mount up top. I'm excited for it to show up! :clap: It should come in handy when I'm in Moab in 2 weeks. :D

LEDbar.jpg
 
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