Shackle Reversal ?

I'm going to be installing a 2 1/2" lift on my 66 soon and I thought about doing a shackle reversal on the front. Have any of you done this. I heard it makes for a smoother ride and better handling. Would I just swap the front and rear spring mounts ( on the front axle) and put the shackles on the back mount or is there more to it than that? Oh yea I completed my HEI conversion this weekend, It runs on all six now!

 

There's a little more to it, as you won't be able to just switch the shackle position unless you switch the shackle mount to the rear of the spring. If you look at it, in it's stock form, the shackle mount is different than the main eye mount that's on the other end.

 

The installed angle of the front springs and front diff will also be different so will need to shim the front axle or remove and reangle/weld the spring pads to match the new angle needed. Nickmil.

 

Try going to this site http://www.mountainoffroad.com/ They used to have quite a bit of information on how shackle rev. work. I used their kit for mine with some modifications. With the shackel rev. your axle moves to the rear when the springs compress, so you need to make sure your front driveshaft has room to compress before it bottoms out. I didn't like their shackle setup. It's designed to be a bolt on kit so the shackle is kind of a wishbone configuration so it fits up in the frame mount. I cut the original spring pivot bracket off and welded on a shackle mount i got from 4WD Parts Hardware so I could use a standard shackle. The ride is awesome offroad. Its a little soft on the pave,ent. When you hit the binders the front end dips a little more than normal. If you do a lot of trail riding, it's definitely worth it.

 

YES, I have done a Reversal to a Jeep or Two-- or more.

Jeeps with a reversal tend to track better on a wash-board eroded dirt/gravel road-- like what happens when roads bet ripples from log trucking in the mountians. Thats if you are driving at about 25-30 mph on these roads.

I never noticed any other significant advantage with the kind of driving I did-- Mild trails with loose rock at slow speeds-- no actual rock crawling...

So on my current Cj6 project I just rebuilt and redrilled all my stock hangers-- with no reversal. I put on 2 1/2 lift springs, stock shakles and lifted the Body 2 inches to run 31 inch tires with plenty of clearance to run tire chains. This is because I plan on moving back to the Pacific North West USA where I will have to push grill deep snow down a 1/2 mile long driveway to the main road where my car is parked on a plowed road to go work.--- And I do not want to use a snowmobile. With Lockers and chains-- it will push wet snow hood high this way-- while Big BFGs would just spinn in such conditions.

Usually when you adjust for caster when doing a reversal-- it will lift the front of the Jeep about 2 inches anyway. On the pavement, it changes the way your Jeep handles in a hard stop, making a nose dive. This is because Jeeps tend to be heavy in front anyway. So this change in hard emergency braking handling is the main disadvange in a reversal. In 1956 CJ5s came with reversed shakles-- and ofcourse many Military Jeeps were sprung reversed in front.

 

The race Jeepsters at Chuchua's used to run reversed shackles. I thought it was to prevent bending a spring if they hit something hard at speed. The Jeep they built up for the journalists to run the 500 in (from "Off Road and 4WD") was an orange '72 Renegade, and had stock front shackles. It had blocks welded to the side of the frame to prevent over-center movement of the front shackles.

 

Thanks guys, it sounds like alot of work with little payback. I think I'll leave them in the stock location.