Rear shackles

looks like your springs are saging a little from the shackle angle, but other than that it looks ok from what I can see looking sidways.
 
Old Dog said:
looks like your springs are saging a little from the shackle angle, but other than that it looks ok from what I can see looking sidways.
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Every other cj I look at has the shackles facing straight down. I'm just wondering if the po installed the wrong springs or something. Judging by the rest of the vehicle, I'd say he couldn't fix a sandwich let alone a Jeep.
 
thats what I was thinking, too long maybe?
for sure not a lot of play left in it and the spring doesn't look too flat. Kind of hard to tell with the jeep standing on its end like that, I guess it takes up a lot less room in the driveway that way.:laugh:
 
FishinMagician said:
Every other cj I look at has the shackles facing straight down. I'm just wondering if the po installed the wrong springs or something. Judging by the rest of the vehicle, I'd say he couldn't fix a sandwich let alone a Jeep.
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you can never tell what the PO did.
My shackles were pretty much straight down when the springs were new.
They are starting to look like yours now after 6 years of wheeling.
As they sag they loose some of there arch and get longer so they
push the shackle out some like yours.
 
Your shackles will not allow the springs to compress and work properly.
Does not look good at all to me. as the spring compresses it gets longer and your shackles will be hitting the frame before that happens
 
gliryan said:
Is the shackle hanger put on backwards?
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No, I've checked other Jeeps and they're the same. I'm guessing they're the wrong springs but dont know how to tell for sure.
 
I don't think the springs or shackles are wrong. Just sagging springs.
 
Thanks for all the input. I guess I wont worry about it for now. I pretty much just use the Jeep on my property, but I was just curious.
 
I'd say it's seriously sagging springs, or more likely too long of a spring. They are definitely aftermarket springs with that military wrap.
 
Looking at the CJ from the rear, does it appear that the leaf springs bow out a bit? From what I understand, by the time the '86 came out the tooling was pretty worn out and the spring pads on the rear axle have been assembled out a bit more than they should be. Making the leaf springs out of parallel to one another. Anyway I would suggest a slightly longer spring shackle. Those leaf springs do appear to be of a good quality since they do have a military style wrap on them.
 
This is not going to be a popular suggestion but try unbolting the hanger and turning it around. That should put the shackle back in the right position or close to it. You should still adress the wrong/sagging spring issue but turning it will allow the spring to move properly. I would not put longer shackles on. I dont think you will get that much movement out of them
 
Jimbos76cj said:
This is not going to be a popular suggestion but try unbolting the hanger and turning it around.
Click to expand...


Absolutely not the shackle should be angled back 30-45 degrees at rest.

If the hanger was reversed, the shackle would try to move toward the frame as the spring is trying lengthen. Not good.

The shackle should not be vertical either. It could flip forward and jam. Not good either.

Jack up the rear and and let the axle hang. What is the angle? It still should not be vertical.
 
73CJ said:
Absolutely not the shackle should be angled back 30-45 degrees at rest.

If the hanger was reversed, the shackle would try to move toward the frame as the spring is trying lengthen. Not good.
Click to expand...

see... I told you. So what your saying is that even if he turned th shackle around anger around and it hung at the desired angle it would still not be good because??

Keep in mind he's not then likely running a set of springs that are to long. Normaly if your putting on longer springs you move the hanger into a position that it is acceptable. That all I was suggesting.

Please note that the shackle is currently bottomed out on the frame

Also please see where I suggested that he adress the problem with the spring being to long.
 
I a made this picture to illustrate what 73CJ was talking about. The red line shows how far the bushing is from the bolt hole. If the shackle hanger was reversed the bushing would be that far behind the rear bolt. That would cause the shackle to buckle even standing still. You can never mount a shackle farther back than the spring eye.
9027d1333024102-rear-shackles-shackle.jpg
 

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Thank you for the drawing Busa.. I would still turn it around just to see how it fits. Maybe the spring is being Limited by the length of the shackle its self. I figured the 20 minutes it would take to jack it up and turn them around for be a quick and easy indicator of of what step would need to be taken next before he went and bought a new pair of springs or wasted money on other things. If we were 100% sure that those were Stock CJ springs then it would be an easy fix and he could just get some new springs.

I was just throwing out an option for a Farm use Jeep that was better then the alternative of leaving them the way they were.
We all know that people hack up and throw jeeps together with out even thinking abut things like angles. The Po probably read some post from a Internet genious that "chevy springs" will get you alot of lift and flex but never read far enough to see that you need to move the mounts to get them to fit correctly. You can agree that you see this every day by the "im gonna put a Cheap SOA lift on it to fit my 33's"
 
before I can answer

I want a pic of the other side
anyone notice the spring on the other side of the jeep?
 
Pretty hard to suggest a corrective actioon plan without seeing the whole picture. Spring hangers and spring length are a calculation and not a guess if you want it to function properly.

If you want to move the hanger, try moving it back 1 bolt hole, but reversed.

Ask anybody who have put YJ springs on and got the shackle angle correct.

Definitely could be the wrong length, sagged or were the front hangers replaced incorrectly?

Need more pictures and measurements.
 
Since this thread is getting into the proper operation of shackles and this being my first leaf spring vehicle, Ive got a couple questions.

With the vehicle stationary with a standard load (one passenger), what kind of angle should you have at the shackle? I currently have no back seat, spare, or anything so I know its really light.

Before I get that answer, when we talk about the angle, are we measuring:

The angle between the shackle and the frame

Or the angle between the leaf spring and the shackle (a line drawn through the spring eyes intersecting with a line drawn through the eyes of the shackle.

I'll post up a picture of mine tomorrow but I can tell you that the rear shackle is about 15* back if you call straight up and down to the frame 90*. I think I saw someone post that it should be 30* to 45* back? But that kindof looks like what the previous picture in this thread is showing.

By jumping up and down on the bumper, I see my shackles move maybe another 15* back. When I jack it up, they swing a little past 90* to the front. FYI, 73CJ5, 4" spring lift installed by PO; I don't know what brand but this was recent.

I've seen threads talking about changing your shackle angle. The only way I could see doing this is by moving the mount. Or does shortening the shackles increase angle and lengthening decreases it? I've got the stock ones in back so I can't really shorten it any more. I could see a straight up and down shackle fighting the springs a little on compression, but mine aren't, so I think its just an overly stiff spring with no weight on it. Does changing the angle effectively reduce spring rate in my case when I know that my shackles are moving and allowing the spring to lengthen?

I took the grinder with a cutoff wheel and lopped off the smallest spring so I wouldn't lose any height. This definitely helped but I wouldn't mine it being a little softer.

Busa?, what mods have you done or what are you running? I think I saw a pic of your ride with good articulation. FYI, I'm looking for weight transfer during launch so I'm just trying to confirm that my shackles are operating correctly in the normal range. That way I'll know that I just need to chop one more leaf.

Has anybody chopped a 5 spring pack down to three and been ok? What if I just shorten the now shortest one (previously second shortest) to act like an overload? I built some heavy duty traction bars so I can't get axle wrap.

I apologize in for all the questions. Been reading a lot in the last few days but didn't get the questions answered.

Thanks
 
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