Hey guys:

I want to lose the blocks from the rear axle. I've seen some posts talking about shackle flips and such. My question is this: What is the route I want to go to get rid of the blocks (They look like 4" blocks, although it is a 6" lift kit) by doing some kind of shackle swap?

Thanks.

Oh, it is an 81 F150. 9" rear axle.

 

well, you could go with lift springs, but if you want to retain your ride you have now, you have to drop your suspension points. go with a shackle flip. check out a few of the gallerys of people who post here alot and theres all kind of pictures that should be pretty self explanatory.

 

Measure those blocks. I'm sure you could squeeze 4" out of a shackle flip but not 6" without also dropping the hangers, or longer shackles, etc.

 

Sitting there looking at it, it doesn't look like a shackle flip alone will give enough to put it where it is right now. I saw that bronco guys use different hangers - off of like a mid 80's F250. I guess I'll just have to look around.

 

Either tonight or tomorrow morning I'll finish my shackle flip and post a picture of it with the hangers. If you go to a hanger I would imagine you could easily get 6" out of it. I got about 4 by just flipping the stock bracket upside down.

 

Alright TallGuy. I finished the flip and took some pictures. Check out this gallery: https://www.ford-trucks.com/user_gal...&albumid=13227

Those new hangers are off of an 89 Bronco. You can use the hangers off pretty much any full size truck as well. They moved the spring eye exactly 10" from its original position which equated to 6.5" of lift vs. the stock setup. I always forget to mention that the lift amount is split somewhat because you are not moving the front of the spring, only the back. But anyway, measuring at the wheel hub it's 6.5" of lift. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Hey, thats a great write up with pics, Ivan. You should have Ken put it in the tech files since this question always comes up. I like how you covered a basic flip vs. using different hangers for more lift, and how you covered the axle movement. Well done

 

We aim to please. Now if I can only have Ken add some sheparding info to the tech pages we'd be good to go.

 

I don't think they call it sheparding when you are herding camels
or are you trying to horn in on Pro's territory

 

I wondered why all my sheep were limping after Ivan came up last!

Its funny...no matter how hard we try to talk about tech it always degenerates...

 

getting back to tech-

ivan, how was the shackle angle when you flipped the stock bracket..? I want about 4" of lift, and the stock flip should do fine

Any thing wrong with that setup, except for the fact that you needed more lift??

 

When I flipped the stock bracket upside down the angle was not too great (using the original rivet holes). It left the shackle straight up and down rather than angled which would have made for a crappy ride. Had I planned to leave it I would have wanted to move the bracket about 2" forward.

For the new hanger the shackle was straight up and down during my placement of the hangers (no weight on the springs) and when the truck was lowered the shackle settled at about 30-35 degrees, as you can see in the gallery picture. It turned out perfect. Nothing wrong with using the stock bracket upside down. I went to hangers because I was wanting to ditch the blocks but the truck looks so cool now that I'm going to leave them. Bigger IS better.

 

was it 90 degree with weight on it?

 

Sorry Brem, your question is confusing me. This is pretty close to what you want for proper shackle angle:



What this does is turns the up/down movement of your axle into a lateral movement at the shackle. The spring flexes and the shackle pushes farther back. When I just flipped the stock bracket upside down using the original holes my shackle angle looked like this:



As you can see the shackle is straight up and down, spring eye being dead even with the shackle pivot point. What this means is when you hit a bump the up/down movement of the axle will carry straight through your shackle, into your frame and jar your fillings loose. It's not problematic in terms of function but it makes for a really rough ride. All you would have to do to correct this is move the bracket 2" or so forward and drill new holes so that the shackle angle reflects the first picture I posted.

What seems to work in terms of figuring out placement is to have the bracket positioned so the shackle is straight up and down when there is no weight on the spring (i.e. your frame is propped up with a keg and you are mock fitting the leaf spring with shackle attatched). Then when you put the truck down and the spring flexes the shackle will settle back to between 30 and 40 degrees.

Does this make any sense?

EDIT I think I get what you were asking now. Yes, the picture of is with weight on it (both pictures are). The shackles with the hanger actually have a little bit more of an angle than shown in the picture I posted. That was with 1 side done. Once I flipped both sides the angle increase a bit.

 

I think what he was asking was the shackle 90deg to the spring, and by your picture yes it is.