Outer Limits 4x4 Board

there are a few things i was wondering
could some one make there own shackles and would they be road legal
and if they wouldnt be road legal what is the average price for a set of 2 inche longer shackles for a narrow sierra

Do you only want to make them if they aren't legal?:D

I believe that extended shackles are not legal. Many of us in the Melbourne club run shackles about 35mm longer than stock, made from 25mmX50mmX3mm U channel steel and 1/2" by 3.5" bolts. They are easy to make and much stronger than stock. If you use nylocks you can "tune" the stiffness to make it handle or flex as you wish.

It seems that 35mm over helps the ride but doesn't stuff the handling or make the rear shocks hit the brakeline. Also, too much shackle length will stuff the approach angle.

Don't think of longer shackles as a way of boosting height, only to get mroe travel out of the spring and improve the ride.

if they are legal might make a few next year in metal tech but i would only go like 2 inche max longer

zukin4life wrote:if they are legal might make a few next year in metal tech but i would only go like 2 inche max longer

All you need is a drill to make them, order the steel from a supplier that will cut them in the correct lengths and your worked is halved

they aren't legal in nsw, and i've been told that no engineer with sign off on em...

i think it's the same in the other states

I reckon they are soooo easy to make, it would be a waste of a good metal tech class!

Why the obsession with 2" over stock though? they are a really dumb way of gaining lift, and @ 2" over stock, you will struggle to get the car to sit on the bumpstops @ the rear, which adds to the feeling of instability. In any case, @ 2" over stock, you will need longer shocks on custom mounts to get any more droop travel anyway, so it gets pretty complicated and expensive. The front caster will go WAY out and the car will feel wandery and not want to turn in when cornering, and to improve handling with shackles this long, most people weld a cross bar into them, ruining the cars articulation.

sorry to rant, but I really reckon 50mm over stock it too much. It is possible to get 12" of vertical travel out of a sierra rear spring in the front, or an MQ front spring with shackles 35mm over stock.

Gwagensteve
Yeah they are not really worth the effort, I made a set for a mates SJ 413 and other than gaining 25mm of lift for 50mm of shackle you get jack shit extra articulation out it.

Pixs from my secret articulation testing work shop proving you can't get the rear bump stop to touch with them

Shane

Yeah, centre bar equipped mega beefy shackles and urethane type bushes are sure not the hot ticket for Zook articulation. Zooks just aren't heavy enough and don't have enough leverage to twist the spring up. The shackle has to be loose enough to do some of the work.

I don't really have a good photo, but in this photo you can see the wacky angle between the shackle, the spring, and the chassis, and how much of the cars articulation is being handled by the bushing. This car is pretty much at full articulation in the front in this photo. this car is running rears in the front, 35mm over stock shackles a 4" chassis extension, and rancho 9112 shocks (over 10" of shaft travel)

Bushing life is pretty short drives fine on road though.

Hi steve

Yeah, extended shackels suck!!!!
euathyane yay!!!!
in the tube, that is

Do you have to modify the other end of the spring mount as well when modding the shackles??.

Thinking I might have to give it a 1" longer than stock to go with the RUF to fit the 31's

Nic

nicbeer wrote:Do you have to modify the other end of the spring mount as well when modding the shackles??.

Thinking I might have to give it a 1" longer than stock to go with the RUF to fit the 31's

Nic

Shouldn't need to do this, but if you want some more height and fully correct the castor you can do it.

ok i get it shackles such ok this can be deleted if the admin wants to

Gwagensteve wrote:Yeah, centre bar equipped mega beefy shackles and urethane type bushes are sure not the hot ticket for Zook articulation. Zooks just aren't heavy enough and don't have enough leverage to twist the spring up. The shackle has to be loose enough to do some of the work.

I don't really have a good photo, but in this photo you can see the wacky angle between the shackle, the spring, and the chassis, and how much of the cars articulation is being handled by the bushing. This car is pretty much at full articulation in the front in this photo. this car is running rears in the front, 35mm over stock shackles a 4" chassis extension, and rancho 9112 shocks (over 10" of shaft travel)

Bushing life is pretty short drives fine on road though.

Not having the leaf retainers on the spring as in your photo also helps alot in the droop deptarment too, But as the 413 is my mates D/D he opted to keep his on so far.

I agree, never really seen the need to lower the fixed end of the spring, although it will add the full 1" of height, it introdices a lot more complexity in getting the strength and everything right, plus it will make it harder to get the car to settle on the bumpstop, which hurts stability. ( if the car is on the bumpstop, it can't do any weird bouncing stuff)

I have never thought that spring retainers really made any difference to the daily driven feel of a sierra. Same thing with 3/4 eliptic, if you are unloading the suspension so much that the spring retainers are limiting droop on the road you have probably allready fallen over!

I drove my sierra on the road with no spring retainers all round and not many of our club members run them front or rear. Just open them up with a big screwdriver and try it with them like that, I would be surprised if you felt the difference until you are off road.

I think it is really necessary to extend the chassis to run RUF. I have sen some cars running it with really spooky shackles and a stock chassis but it always looks a bit spooky to me.

If you have the shock lengths right, you will not be able to run 31's without a body lift (2") Also, remember that you have to cut the bumpstops off and slide them forward 1.5", move the brakeline brackets, fit longer brakelines (4" over stock should do) and the shock mounts will have to be moved too.

If you redrill the fixed end back a bit further, you can negate the need to do all this, and still gain the travel, but you will not gain the wheelbase stretch or the change in balance point, and you will still have firewall clearance issues.

Also, the extra droop on the lowside forces the top edge of the compressed tyre higher up into the guard. we ran Gregs old car with 30 X 9.5's, 2" body lift, stock offset 15X6 ROH trak II rims and they were a pretty close fit with no cutting at all in the guard area, but that is a pretty small tyre to fill up the guard with a 2" body lift. with the 34's on gregs car now, we run a 1" bumpstop spacer and LOTS of cuttling.

Of course we would have had more flex if we went SPOA (Gday Bigsteve... couldn't resist)

Sorry to get a bit off the topic, but im a massive fan of RUF, there just not a quick fix

PS It is JUST possible to invert a 35mm over stock shackle with long shocks and RUF if you are abusive, so a slightly longer shackle or some anti kickback plates might be the go, but it hasn't been a big drama.

Cheers, Steve

If you have the shock lengths right, you will not be able to run 31's without a body lift (2") Also, remember that you have to cut the bumpstops off and slide them forward 1.5



what do ya meean by this??not sure if i follow.

ive just done some work to the rear set up and after reading some of this post am unsure if i done the right thing.
Ive spring under with 2inch raised springs with the load helper leaf (shortest one) taken out and have made a custome bracket to mount off the existing upper shock mounts and drilled and bolted new mounts 140mm closer in and installed longer triton shocks. spring clamps have been opened up and retaining bolts welded on top to stop leaves from opening up to far on droop.
what else should i do to aid articulation other than brake lines
tyres are 31s

also whats RUF mean? i guess ya dont mean my workmanship coz it not ruff it just plain old dodgy

built4thrashing wrote:also whats RUF mean? i guess ya dont mean my workmanship coz it not ruff it just plain old dodgy

Rears Up Front

the answer to all your probs is custom springs.

any decent springmaker can make springs exactly how you want them. i got a set for my old zook, i wanted to stay SPUA but went up 60mm in the arch, got a longer free end to stop the shackle inverting under droop. What i had done was get the axle moved forward slightly too (about 10mm), but it rubbed a bit on the factory bumper i still managed to fit with the 30"

it looked like this

Thats all cool, but there is no way that that spring has as much travel as a fully completed RUF conversion, as you are still running a stock top shock mount, so overall travel is cannot be all that much over stock. RUF has the ability to max out a 12" travel rancho on articulation. There is still a 4" gain on vertical travel over an aftermarket leaf (OME) with a "long travel" shock on stock mounts.

A 50mm ome spring with a 35mm over stock shackle is over 60mm of lift anyway, nothing "custom".

Seems like a fair bit of experimentation with a springmaker to end up with only a limited amount of gain over an off the shelf aftermarket front spring with the centre bolt hole on the spring pad re drilled. Christover has done this with standard OME fronts and moved the axle forward about 22mm (I seem to recall.... is this right Chris?)

I any case, I think that I would like off the shelf springs anyway becuse they tend to have a fairly short life.

Did you flex it with the shocks disconnected and see how much travel was in the spring?

Gwagensteve wrote:Thats all cool, but there is no way that that spring has as much travel as a fully completed RUF conversion, as you are still running a stock top shock mount, so overall travel is cannot be all that much over stock. RUF has the ability to max out a 12" travel rancho on articulation. There is still a 4" gain on vertical travel over an aftermarket leaf (OME) with a "long travel" shock on stock mounts.

A 50mm ome spring with a 35mm over stock shackle is over 60mm of lift anyway, nothing "custom".

Seems like a fair bit of experimentation with a springmaker to end up with only a limited amount of gain over an off the shelf aftermarket front spring with the centre bolt hole on the spring pad re drilled. Christover has done this with standard OME fronts and moved the axle forward about 22mm (I seem to recall.... is this right Chris?)

I any case, I think that I would like off the shelf springs anyway becuse they tend to have a fairly short life.

Did you flex it with the shocks disconnected and see how much travel was in the spring?

With what you are saying, I think. If you have a RUF kit it will easily out travel a front spring. Even though using a std shock mount. As I am doing a RUF and plan to use the std shock mount for now to avoid welding that I can't do.(no welder)

cheers

cheers

Hey nicbeer learn to weld! Most probably be one of the most worth things to learn. As for me my old man is a welder by trade so no probs their.

Gwagensteve wrote:sorry to rant, but I really reckon 50mm over stock it too much. It is possible to get 12" of vertical travel out of a sierra rear spring in the front, or an MQ front spring with shackles 35mm over stock.

where do u get you measurment for the vertical travel from?

DeWsE wrote:Hey nicbeer learn to weld! Most probably be one of the most worth things to learn. As for me my old man is a welder by trade so im as good as a tradesman at fabrication.

Gwagensteve wrote:Of course we would have had more flex if we went SPOA (Gday Bigsteve... couldn't resist)

Sorry to get a bit off the topic, but im a massive fan of RUF, there just not a quick fix

PS It is JUST possible to invert a 35mm over stock shackle with long shocks and RUF if you are abusive, so a slightly longer shackle or some anti kickback plates might be the go, but it hasn't been a big drama.

Cheers, Steve

if the angle is setup right u shouldnt invert a shackle! im SOA on toy diffs(so alot more weight and leverage on the springs then u melb dudes runnin tooth pick axels ) and i am yet to invert a shackle
ive seen pics off how all ya melb people do it an the shackle is almost vertical at ride height

yld04b wrote:

DeWsE wrote:Hey nicbeer learn to weld! Most probably be one of the most worth things to learn. As for me my old man is a welder by trade so im as good as a tradesman at fabrication.

Yep how did you guess!

Gwagensteve wrote:Thats all cool, but there is no way that that spring has as much travel as a fully completed RUF conversion, as you are still running a stock top shock mount, so overall travel is cannot be all that much over stock. RUF has the ability to max out a 12" travel rancho on articulation. There is still a 4" gain on vertical travel over an aftermarket leaf (OME) with a "long travel" shock on stock mounts.

A 50mm ome spring with a 35mm over stock shackle is over 60mm of lift anyway, nothing "custom".

Seems like a fair bit of experimentation with a springmaker to end up with only a limited amount of gain over an off the shelf aftermarket front spring with the centre bolt hole on the spring pad re drilled. Christover has done this with standard OME fronts and moved the axle forward about 22mm (I seem to recall.... is this right Chris?)

I any case, I think that I would like off the shelf springs anyway becuse they tend to have a fairly short life.

Did you flex it with the shocks disconnected and see how much travel was in the spring?

rules over here in nz mean we can do what we like using the stock mounts for both springs and shocks, without requiring certification, so i had the longest rancho that will fit (180mm travel at shock) and the springs were only $125 each all custom made

the shocks were the limiting factor for both droop and compression, if you look closely at my shot above you will see i had to bodge the top shock mount a bit (washer missing) and the bumpstop was packed down 4mm also

i was working within our rules and to a budget so that's where my comments come from

nicbeer wrote:With what you are saying, I think. If you have a RUF kit it will easily out travel a front spring. Even though using a std shock mount. As I am doing a RUF and plan to use the std shock mount for now to avoid welding that I can't do.(no welder)

cheers

cheers

if you don't raise your top shock mount and don't extend your bumpstop then the travel you will get is dependant on the longest shock you can fit in which happens to have a compressed length of about 312mm (rancho rs9117 just fit)

i got full travel out of the longest shock that would fit the standard mounts using a spring pretty much the same as stock just modded to suit my purposes.

so yeah you will need to move shock mounts to get any real advantage from RUF

redzook wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:
PS It is JUST possible to invert a 35mm over stock shackle with long shocks and RUF if you are abusive, so a slightly longer shackle or some anti kickback plates might be the go, but it hasn't been a big drama.

Cheers, Steve

if the angle is setup right u shouldnt invert a shackle! im SOA on toy diffs(so alot more weight and leverage on the springs then u melb dudes runnin tooth pick axels ) and i am yet to invert a shackle
ive seen pics off how all ya melb people do it an the shackle is almost vertical at ride height

Drive the front of the spring into an imoveable object and it will invert
How do you figure "alot more" weight ?? your only running pissy lil 33's You have not inverted a shackle because you could drive a stock gemini anywhere you have wheeled ...

love_mud wrote:

redzook wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:
PS It is JUST possible to invert a 35mm over stock shackle with long shocks and RUF if you are abusive, so a slightly longer shackle or some anti kickback plates might be the go, but it hasn't been a big drama.

Cheers, Steve

if the angle is setup right u shouldnt invert a shackle! im SOA on toy diffs(so alot more weight and leverage on the springs then u melb dudes runnin tooth pick axels ) and i am yet to invert a shackle
ive seen pics off how all ya melb people do it an the shackle is almost vertical at ride height

Drive the front of the spring into an imoveable object and it will invert
How do you figure "alot more" weight ?? your only running pissy lil 33's You have not inverted a shackle because you could drive a stock gemini anywhere you have wheeled ...

I've only ever inverted shackles driving/reversing up a vertical surface.

Never had any issues driving onto other vehicles tyres though.