The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk rear lowering shackles ?

gonna get a dropped front axle next week, and was wondering on the rear lowering.
looks like i dont have much room for a rear flip, and dont want to "C" the frame, so want to try the 2 inch extended rear shackles and start taking out 3-4 leafs and go from there.

anyone here have any experience, tips, on using the extended shackles to drop it the first 2 inches ?
i see tham at cpp for 50 bucks, so not too bad...thanks

RRK,
Don't know if this is the same thing you're talking about, but when I first got my truck someone had started doing something like that. They had put a new spring shackle mount waaay back on the frame. the springs were 3-4 inches longer than original. All the leaves had been removed except the main leaf.
I had a great time running from side to side on the rear bumper pretending I was on a see-saw. Didn't seem safe to me. Of course there were no shocks on it either.
I did see a unique way of lowering the rear about 3 inches using the original torquetube rear axle on a '52. Someone simply unbolted the axle from the springs and put a 3" spacer block between springs and axle. It APPEARED to work fine, and looked a lot more roadworthy than the monoleaf setup. Of course it's hard to say for sure because neither of these trucks were running. So all of my observations are based upon the static display ;-)
Both attempts may put unecessary stress on the driveline.
Bluedawg

RAT,

Isn't your rig a axle-over spring configuration? Can't you merely install lowering blocks and longer U-bolts and drop the rear end any amount you want!

Stuart

thanks guys. nope, mine is axle under leafs, so would have to put rear inside of leafs, and looks like there is no room for that without having to put a c notch kit, which i dont want to do.
it is a 1980 chevy truck rear, so im not really sure how the factory one was, leaf rear wise.
seems to me the 2 inch shackle extension wouldnt put the rear of the spring too far back, but who knows. thanks again guys.
and if anyone has pics of their set up, please send to [email protected]
thanks...

i just put 3inch lowering blocks and u bolts on my 1950 3100 everything works fine so far

thanks much 1950chevy3window...do you have any pics of your truck ?