i heard this shackle flip will give me 4 inches in the back. I wanna know what is required for a shackle flip. do i just take those rivits out and flip them around and bolt them back up? thanks

 

You'll replace your current rear brackets with either Sky Manufacturing brackets or a set of stock F250 or F350 hangers (that is the front hanger for the rear springs). Grind off the rivets and line up your new hangers to give your shackle a 35% (approx) angle. Some people weld them on but I'd recommend grade 8 bolts incase you need to move them later. Do a search in the Offroad forum for "shackle flip" and "shackle reversal". There's more pictures and info there than you probably want to read.

 

If you put a front hanger in the rear it won't work. Unless there is a rear shackle bushing available with a 5/8" inner sleeve. Front hangers use a 5/8" through bolt, rear uses 9/16".

 

Reeeeaaaaallllly??? Guess my eyes are playing tricks on me.

 

Of course it will work. Everybody knows the difference between a shackle flip and a shackle reversal, right?

 

thanks for the pic that really helps. but i am still not 100% clear what is in the picture. is that a shackle reversal or a shackle flip unsure of the differance. and did you have to buy those parts or are they on my truck right now and i just need to get the rivits out and switch things around. thanks for the help.

 

Hey Ivan, there is ......."NO" .....way that front rear spring hanger came off a 77.5 - 79 Mine are 9/16", Both rear rear spring & shackle. The front rear hanger is 5/8". That hanger doesn't even look like a 77.5 - 79 front rear hanger.

 

Thats because its not. But then, he didn't say that it was. He just said said that you can use the front hanger for the rear, which you can. Remember, bolt on is not hard core. A little fabrication and thinking out of the box is needed.

 

Don't believe he ever said his truck was a 77.5-79. I'm not understanding what the issue is here mark. You're telling me that you can't use a bolt that's 1/16 less in diameter because . . . why? Just because you can't buy it off the shelf doesn't mean you can't make it work. There's no saying that you have to use stock shackles either. If you're that concerned about having to build something without an instruction sheet then buy a Sky kit. There's nothing wrong with doing it that way but you'll sacrifice a few inches of lift and about $60 that you could save by using the hanger. Why is this all so hard to grasp? It's like saying "you can't put larger than stock tires on a truck because they won't fit".

 

I thought we were talking about using a 77.5 - 79 front rear hanger in the rear. #1 front rear hanger uses 5/8" through bolt. Rear hanger & shackle uses 9/16" bolt. Big mismatch. #2 front rear hanger is 3 1/2" wide, shackle is 3 1/4" wide, need shimed to work.

 

Nobody mentioned any years but the picture is of a 73. I'll be using 78-96 hangers for mine with custom shackles. If you want to use stock shackles I don't think throwing a 1/8 washer on each side to shim it would be considered major fabrication. These can be found at Lowes for 10 cents. 2 on the driver's side, 2 on the passengers side . . . that's 40 cents and it doesn't even require a welder to install. Still puzzled at why you don't think a 9/16 bolt will fit through a 5/8 hole. OR if you prefer to use the 5/8 bolt you can drill your stock shackle and install a larger bushing. This isn't rocket science. You need a grinder to remove the rivets, a drill for your new holes, and some grade 8 hardware. That's all it takes . . . nothing fancy.

 

just for kicks and giggles... heres what I did, not that anyone cares....
the truck on the left is two wheel drive with the rear hangars fliped over.
the truck on the right is a 75 f250 4x4. they both have 33" tires on them.

the pic below is what it looks like afterwords.

correct me if I am wrong but didn't muddyford75 ask about a flip? and was asking if it will give him 4"? it will give you about 3 or3.5... you extreme hard core guys are way beond that with the custom stuff. although it is quite impressive! interesting idea on useing the front one in the rear... nice!!!

 

Muddyford,

I did the shackle flip on my 78 off-road truck. At first, I just drilled out the rivets, flipped over the stock brackets, and bolted it back on. Worked just fine but I was told that I should move the brackets forward to get a better shackle angle. I moved them 3" forward and all is well. Handles the trails and hills nicely.

One concern with the stock shackles is that they were designed to handle a tension load. When you flip it over it becomes a compression load, and some people have had problems with the shackle bending or collapsing. That can be easily avoided by welding a plate across the back side making it more of a tube than a channel (or just get hangers from a bigger truck as sugested above).

I didn't reinforce mine (yet) and they've held up to quite a few serious beatings.

So in short, yes you can just drill 'em out, flip 'em, and bolt 'em back in. But move 'em forward 3". Also (as stated above) you'll really only get about 3" or so. Just enough to make up for removing those dang lift blocks.

Hope this helps.

Kevin K.

 

Sure it will fit. The problem is your front rear spring hanger is drilled to 5/8". The rear shackle bushing is 9/16". " 5/8" through bolt wont go through the 9/16" shackle bushing ". No one that I could find makes a shackle bushing that would fit with a 5/8" sleeve. So you would have to weld up the front rear spring hanger and redrill it to 9/16" to use it in the rear.
Back spacing is the same from front rear to rear rear hangers, so the shims would have to go to the outside. Thats if you could straighten out the bushing problem.
I ended up making my own rear rear spring hangers.They look a lot like sky hangers with a cupple of modifications. They weren't hard to make, maby 4 hours ? I had a new rear rear stock hanger and a picture of Sky's hanger I got from Fish's gallery to go by & it worked out good. I made the shackles also. I couldn't get a front rear spring bushing from energy suspension. I wanted to go with it's 3 1/2" wide and 5/8" through bolt for my rear rear hanger and shackle, but for some reason when you order the front rear spring bushing you get the rear rear spring bushing. No big deal it is 3 1/2" wide but I'm stuck with a 9/16" through bolt.

 

Yes it will. I'm confused as to the confusion here? We're talking about something that is about as basic as you can get? Resleeving isn't rocket science. Since the guy who's doing this won't need to, its a moot point, but still...