wow man ive never seen a leaf spring kink like that. congrats on the new job. hey i noticed you had the high clearance cross member, how is that?  I'm debating if i should just buy a new rear trans mount and trim the factory cross member or go the way you did.

Its supposedly pretty common for shackle forward set ups to kink and break springs, you run into something with the shackle or hit something abrupt with the front tires and it shoves the shackle back.

Yeah i have the high clearance cross member, i think its a bit of a weak set up.  It just clamped onto your frame and seems like its in a very vulnerable spot to mashed or ripped off.  Im just going to alter how it mounts and i think it will be quite a bit better.


Here's my new employer
http://www.lostcoast.com/


Amilla

thats awesome you work for a brewery i guess you'll bring the beer for the events lol.

i have the calmini shackle reverse set up so my i guess ill have to worry about doing it backwards 

it could be allot worse with the leaf, it prob. acted like a fuse and that is the cheapest part.

it could be allot worse with the leaf, it prob. acted like a fuse and that is the cheapest part.

I was also thinking along those lines, that's pretty much why i haven't done anything to prevent it.
I have seen some pics where people clamp 3 pieces of 1/4" flat bar on the back of the spring.  Not sure how well this works if it even does any good at all.

But yes, a beat to piss old YJ spring ran me $0.00 from the only Jeep shop here so im pretty happy with that.

Amilla

what if you put some type of plate in the front from stuff hitting it?

If you mean put something in front of the shackle to keep it from pushing back.
The shackle doesn't have to be hit, a sudden stop to the tires will force the shackle back and tweak the spring.

I was thinking about adding a bump stop or something to limit how far the shackle can travel backwards, but as mrfulelish said, it may just end up breaking something other than the spring. The spring is a lot cheaper and easier to fix than ripping a shackle hanger off or tweaking something else.


Amilla

I just remembered my old YJ...  I carried a pry bar with me when I went off-road so I could pry the shackles back around when they flipped and were pinned to the frame. 

ok i get ya i think if i make another stupid suggestion im sorry but what if you do some type of ladder bar set up in the front?

 Ive seen them on big lifted fords and Chevy's that had straight axles in the front. It attaches to the axle and the frame.

I was thinking about something like that.
More like a rear traction bar, but just mount it up front.  Im pretty tight on space up front but im sure i could work something in.

Just put my new(to me) spring in yesterday and all is good, but i now need to make up some new front shackles.  The existing ones are looking pretty tweaked and from the get go they didn't fit at all (Sky Manufacturing's shackles from the YJ missing link kit).  Ill probably end up making some new ones up this weekend.

Amilla

my cousin and I use to make our own shackles and lift kits on our chevys. I live up north now so i dont have all the stuff my dad had but we use to use 1/4 steel with a square tube in the center and then put another 1/4 inch plate on each side and it acted like a skid guard for the bolts it worked well.

I was looking at mine and because i have the 3 inch calmini lift springs would that make them more prone to do what happen to your springs?

Haven't been working on the rig all that much more wheeling than work.
I did finally get around to getting some exhaust bent and installed.

2" exhaust with an xcelerator turbo muffler, I left the cat off because on the last outing i jumped a speed table and the old exhaust fell off    So it got pretty thrashed.





My bro got me the muffler for X-mas so the price of the just tubing and some flanges was about 65 bucks.
Its not to loud, the noise does start to come up around 3500 to 4000 RPM but its not too bad.

More building to come....
1.6 16V with tranny and duel T-cases
Half doors and some sort of cage.

Amilla

Just went out to day and danced around in the rocks
A nice flex shot.


Still need to do some finish work, re-rout the front break lines and invest in some bump stops.

My older bro passed away a month ago, so we had to head down to Huntington Beach and pick up his rig.

He hated mud, all about rocks....so the rig is super clean.


Took it out today to give it a little run in the rocks, ended up blowing the front axles up


It is now going to be our memorial rig, trying do do everything the way he would of done it or wanted it to be.

Amilla

sorry to hear the bad news 

I'm pretty sure he's happy that your going to take care of his rig like it was yours but do the things he wanted to do.

Thanks man
This past month was no fun, just lots of bad news.

We found some wish lists that he had written up for his jeep, that will make it a little easier to figure out what direction to go with more build up on it.

Thanks

Amilla