Funfilled Saturday replacing friend's shackles

[dixie_boysles]

Dustin met me up here in Mount Airy Saturday morning so we could replace his rear shackles. He got up here about 8:00 and we got breaksfast and went to the shop we were going to do this at. We got started about 10ish-10:30. We we started by seein if we could do it without removing bed, but realized it would be ALOT easier if we did remove it! At we got the leafs unbolted from the shackles and seen that there was alot of tension on the leafs. we tried jacking the frame up like the How To says but could not get it high enough to seperate the leafs from the shackles. Finally, my buddy who owns the shop said "Guys I have a 2-ton lift that rolls over the truck, you can just hook it to the frame and lift the whole ass end of the truck up. So we did that and it made things much easier, not to mention safer. We got all the bolts out of the leafs to where we were left with the hanger and then i went to twon with the grinder getting rid of rivets. put the new ones on and put it all back together! I think we did a great job considering it was our first time doing this. Afterwards, we treaded ourselves to a nice huge burger from chilies!

btw, this is his truck:

 

[blk074x4sport]

Nice Rig....! looks like a good day of fun

 

[railman]

sorry, am i missing something.......that bracket looks fine...other than where you gouged it with the grinder....


why were you replaceing it??

good job though....

l8r, John

 

[dixie_boysles]

sorry, am i missing something.......that bracket looks fine...other than where you gouged it with the grinder....


why were you replaceing it??

good job though....

l8r, John

LOL, in reality they were. just some surace rusting and some paint was flaking off. The driverside was startuing to pit. But my friend is very very particular about his truck and wanted to do it more as a preventative measure. He wanted to do it, so thats what we done. If it had been my truck, i just would have sanded them, thrown some rust converter on them and painted them and they would have been fine.

 

[railman]

ok...mine were totally shot....as a matter of fact the passengerside had gave way and the leaf spring was up against the bed....

well, nuthin' wrong with what he did, it is his truck....

l8r, John

 

[StephenLewis]

Huh, I can crawl under my truck and see right threw my hangers. To be honest I have no clue why my springs are not resting on the bed yet!

 

[ozziemo27]

LOL, in reality they were. just some surace rusting and some paint was flaking off. The driverside was startuing to pit. But my friend is very very particular about his truck and wanted to do it more as a preventative measure. He wanted to do it, so thats what we done. If it had been my truck, i just would have sanded them, thrown some rust converter on them and painted them and they would have been fine.

Wow.....does he realize the whole frame is going to get all rusty and theres not much he can do to stop it unless hes going to do a frame down restoration every 1 or 2 years?