chevy shackles/beltech

[--weezl--]

sorry to post this in urgent, but i am planning on doing this tomorrow (saturday) in preparation for wheeling sunday

my 07 fx4 level II with a 3" bl and 33x12.5km2's flex too far, and right now go into the fender, where i sliced up the outside of both rear tires... i was planning on putting shackles in, which i hoped would help this not happen, but i seem to be getting mixed answers on all the threads i found, so will this help solve my problem or make it worse?

SECOND, i seem to remember someone telling me you can't get the bolts out of the shackles because the frame is in the way or something... is this right? or will it all come apart like it should?

THIRD, what's the total time to do this? i know my way around a wrench, done dozens of shackles and springs, just never on anything with less than 10 tires

EDIT:
just thinking overnight, would it just be a better bet to put explorer springs on? i'm fairly sure that mine are quite flat, i'll take a pic in a few and post it up...

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b339/g-bus_rice/photo3-37.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b339/g-bus_rice/photo2-54.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b339/g-bus_rice/photo1-2.jpg

[alwaysFlOoReD]

You're springs do look flat to me. You may want to do both as you'll have it apart anyway.
Good luck,

Richard

[--weezl--]

does anyone know if the shackle only, will solve my flexing into the fender issue?

[disciplerocks]

The longer shackles will give you more tire clearance and more clearance for your leafs to move.

And Just so you know, my leafs look flat too. And they are Ex leafs.

[stegomon]

the bolt does come out. and if every thing comes out well and the bolts are not seesed in the metal sleeve and you dont turn the sleeve in the rubber. i want to say about 45 minutes

[--weezl--]

my truck is only 3-4 years old, and only about 50 000 miles on it, so it shouldn't be too seized... i didn't end up doing it today, as i woke up at 430pm, and i don't have the parts

[--weezl--]

i over flexed and ****ed up my rear fender today... it's definitely bent and dented... gotta wait till it's clean before i can see how much damage there is, but for sure there is damage, and my flare won't stay on properly :(

[tajvelocity]

I'm not sure why you're having that problem, but I can say that after I installed my Belltechs to lift the rear, the leafs look flatter. I haven't been able to put the bed on it or drive it as it won't start (see my other post) so I don't know how much lift I got or if using them would flatten yours even more, making your problem worse. Do you think you issue is related to flat leafs?

[legoms013]

Your hitting your fender cuz you have 12.5" wide wheels on a very wide rim. I can tell from your pictures, where the profile view of your tire show alot of sidewall.

Beltechs take about 2hrs if nothing is seized and all goes well.

I'd do both the explorer leaves and beltechs, you should have much less of a flex problem afterwards, but I can't guarantee it won't rub still with your tire/wheel combo.

[--weezl--]

picked up a set of expo leafs today, and i've got the belltech 6400's on the passenger seat, going to be installing tomorrow, if i can get replacement bushings or if the stock bushings aren't totally toasted, the leafs are out of a 99 expo 2 door sport, not sure the mileage, but very little rust, and i want to say these leafs are not stock, they are quite clean, a greenish grey colour (painted) and the bolts all had a healthy amount of grey anti-seize on it, which was clean, and i doubt that was put on, at the factory 11 years ago... it dropped below 0 today at around 4pm, so i didn't spend much time outside...

yeah though, my tires don't tuck at all... i should have gotten 2 rims for the back with less or more... back spacing, so the wheels were in farther, the front need to be wide to not rub... might look funny, but it would have fit a lot better...

but yeah the 33x12.5's on 15x10's are damn wide, but they work WICKED

after taking the springs out of the expo, i can't see it taking more than 2 hours to do the full springs and shackles!