shacle question?

[funwheeling]

Has this every happen to you?
Driving down a dirt road on a hunting trip and hit a bump a little hard. As your going down the road you notice that the front of you rig is a little lower then normal and your tires are rubbing in front. And all you can think of is that your springs may have broke.

When you get out to inspect the carnage you don't see any. What you see is that your front shackles are suck in the horizontal position because the were flex and popped over the bottom of the front bumper.

All I had to do to un-stick them is lift the front end with the high-lift and they popped right back out. It was actually quite cartoonish.

[funwheeling]

I know: Shackle>>>

[Tad]

6" lift, it happens, several posts here about that.

[xupe45tgp]

happened to me with a 6". what can i do to fix it?? bumpstops?? longer shackles??

[funwheeling]

Just did a search. I couldn't find any write ups. I tried multiple searchs:
shackles stuck
Shackles caught
shackles ....

[Tad]

http://p4.saignon.net/~tony/shackle02.jpg
Look famialer?
You can flip it back over with a decent size pry bar.
Most folks use a slightly longer shackle to stop this.

[funwheeling]

So, Is this an over center situation or is it getting stuck over the bumper.

Besides the longer shackle has anyone come up with a fix?

Let's see:
small bumper or stop inside shackle bracket to reduce shackle travel?

If not over center the grind small section of bumper.

[DAHoyle]

Longer Shackles is the best way to handle this, however you will need to address the caster/pinion angle afterwards, to make sure the job is safe and complete. You could use a bumpstop, but then you end up giving up travel. The arch of a 6 inch lift spring means that it is considerably longer when flattened out, and in theory would offer more travel. Retaining the short shackle or lowering the bumpstop minimizes any travel gains.

Simple answer is that there is no simple answer, but the easiest is probably to install a lowered bumpstop.

[TINMAN93]

Along with the longer shackle, which will change ride height 1/2 of the extra shackle length, you can buy, or build boomerang shackles that extend forward so when you go into a full compression it will hit the frame, or a stop and prevent the shackle over-center. Much like a bump stop. You can try to search FOUR WHEELER magazine, December 2005 "SHACKLED" for some good info, or 4 Wheel & Off Road article archieves. M.O.R.E. sells a good Boomerang shackle, or you can look it up on there sight to give you some ideas.

[jode]

This use to happen back when I had 4" Superlift springs on the front of my wag - when I pulled them off, I found that the PO that had installed them had messed up and made it so the spring pins didn't seat into the axle and the axle had actually moved. I'm not sure if this affected it, but I just eventually got rid of the Superlift springs and installed Trailmaster springs and never had the prob again. I think that just a little bit longer shackles (like doing a chevy swap - not by adding a 12" shackle) would have done just the trick.
:fsj:

[Herk]

Instead of lowering the axle bump stops excessively, why not weld a couple tabs to the front of the frame to keep the shackles from going past horizontal. Essentially shackle stops.

Jode, I had grief with Superlift spring center bolts on my 83 Wag. Traded it off at Peretsons on Fairview back in 2000, I hope you didn't end up with the same rig, it had issues.

[710 Burner]

So, Is this an over center situation or is it getting stuck over the bumper.

Besides the longer shackle has anyone come up with a fix?

Let's see:
small bumper or stop inside shackle bracket to reduce shackle travel?

If not over center the grind small section of bumper.
When it happened to Xupe, it was an over center issue. As soon as we started jacking the truck up, they sprung loose.

[funwheeling]

When it happened to Xupe, it was an over center issue. As soon as we started jacking the truck up, they sprung loose.
That's what I wanted to here. Thanks.