If you are thinking of buying Autozone Shackles

[ljungberg3]

Thats what i was gonna say, ive honestly never messed with shackles before, but there were 2 holes higher up, that you could put a nice bolt/washer/locking nut in and crank it, maybe use some LocTite or something too...?

thats exactly what I did, i'll post pics tonight of what it looks like.

 

[yellowford]

I picked up the ones from Oreilly's and went to the local harware store and bought grade 8 bolts with locktite and lock washers it will easliy be strong enough. I had warriors on my 96 and it seems to me these will be just fine , to compensate for the movement in the middle I'm just going to put one of the bolts that came in the kit in the holes there.

 

[jchopo01]

I have the autozone shackles on my X and have not had a problem and I had wheeled it pretty hard. The bolt seems to be the issue. I have no worry about any flex in the shackle unless my entire rear axle kicks one way because the leafs are not going to flex sideways with three mounting points.

 

[gijoecam]

i agree fully that the failure was bolt related, but i think there would be a higher chance of being safe with a shackle that wouldnt separate to the left and right when the bolt failed

Not really. The issue wasn't caused by the bracket or its design; the issue was clearly the bolt/nut/retention failure.

I picked up the ones from Oreilly's and went to the local harware store and bought grade 8 bolts with locktite and lock washers it will easliy be strong enough. I had warriors on my 96 and it seems to me these will be just fine , to compensate for the movement in the middle I'm just going to put one of the bolts that came in the kit in the holes there.

Not going to make a big difference by itself. It *may* help keep the body from twisting out *if the bolt came loose again*, but it's not the root cause of the problem. Fix that and you won't need to worry about it.

Also, you have to remember, those shackles are under compression. Putting an artificial 'bend' in the middle by clamping down a bolt in the center is just going to lead to premature failure of both sides. Clamping them down hard on a properly-sized spacer in the middle would probably help, but again, why bother? I'd personally fix the root cause (the lack of retention on that bolt) and forget about 'em.

 

[hunterdan]

I had these shackles on my 98 sport. That truck was totaled almost 2 years now. When It was hit, I was hit under my passengers side door, then the back tire caught, and twisted the axle, as it was going over the hood of the other car. When it twisted, it snapped the main leaf spring near the front mount. The shackles were fine, and were the only part holding the rear axle in place on the passengers side. I used the bolts that came with the kit, and I believe it came with nylock nuts. I also made a spacer out of a galvanized plumbing nipple and bolted it to the shackle in the middle like everyone else suggested. The shackles are plenty strong by themselves. The weak point would be the bolts themselves, but as long as everything it torqued down properly and lock nuts used, you should never have a problem with them.

Dan

 

[motorace 44]

yeah the bolt came loose, but if you had a set of warriors or something the sides of the shackles wouldnt have bent out left and right. I'm just saying, dont you think something with a cross member would be safer?

Easy fix , just add a few more bolts in the empty holes for more stability. Thats what I did and they have not come loose since. I also use a small amount of JB Weld to secure the added bolts. There is always room for improvement on any part. But this was a easy solution