Once again, the old set of shackle brackets I took off looked like they'd been there since the beginning of time, but were pretty straight. When i put the new set on I changed nothing else. I still had the torque tube. The geometry of the rear end was not changed. yet the new shackle brackets started bending within three years. I've since changed to open rear but the bracket bending hasn't gotten any worse.
Short of heating them or using a lot of leverage I have never seen a bent set.
But that's my point. I can knock a shackle bracket off onto the floor, smack it with a hammer a couple times to straighten it out, and put it back on. So, what I didn't know is that these brackets should only bend under extreme cercumstanses. Not with a couple light blows of a hammer.
So I need to find a QUALITY set of shackles and spring eye pins. And when I install them I'll recheck rear end geometry (though I don't think that's the issue).
