Chris' FJ60 Shackle Reversal

[Chris]

While all you good people were getting database error today I was at Brody's installing my shackle reversal ridding me of the long shackles up front. We didn't run into any unusual issues but since my bumper mounted the same place as the new front shackle so Brody got to fab some new mounting brackets after the SR was installed. Of course this added a bunch of time we didn't expect.

As always Pete did a great job welding and directing while I did grinding and such. I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs on the trail Saturday. A plus was that my caster is now back where it should be and the front end isn't wandering like it was on the road.

Saturday will help determine if the shackle angle is good or not. It looks like we should probably move it forward an inch but time will tell. I forgot to take many pics so here's the best I can do.

Thanks Pete! :thunb:

[Pathrat]

Looking forward to seeing what you guys did.

[Funrover]

Man Chris.... you just keep building that rig!

[Chris]

Almost done :lol:

I've been scared of the front shackles since I put them on, now I won't be taking the bypasses like I was. ;)

[Dan]

Can't wait to see it!!!

[Chris]

You just have to look at yours, mine's the same. MAF "kit" :thunb:

[Funrover]

The suspense is killing me...

[1freaky1]

If I had known you was going to Pete's I could have run over to lend a hand and met you Chris. He's only a few minutes away.

[Chris]

I forgot you were so close to Pete or I would have mentioned it so we could meet. We'll be meeting before too long I'm sure Sean. :thunb:

[Brody]

Chris and I got the SR sorted out pretty well. The front fixed hanger had a skip plate welded to it going up to the bumper. This is temporary for right not as the actual plate will need to be removable to allow the bumper to be removed/replace and so is just welded to the bumper, but not attached to the hangers.

The angle of the rear shackles leaves something to be desired and, as Chris says, may result in having to move the rear hanger forward an inch. It certainly won't be inverting as we had the side of the truck/front wheel hiked as far up in the air as we could and got pretty nice flex. There is actually another 2-3" of flex, but this was limited by the length of the shock...

Here are my pictures:

[Brody]

And the remaining shots:

[1freaky1]

That bumper must mount right on the frame cause I don't see any supports in it, am I correct?

[Chris]

You are correct, the bumper mounts to the frame. The SR is welded to the frame where the bumper used to mount, so Pete moved the mounting bracket the thickness of the SR. A lot of work just to move it a hair. ;)

[1freaky1]

Yep got to love the little things like that, Oh shoot it doesn't now I got redo this to make that work. It is what makes it all worth it in the end + interesting in my book even tho it usually frustrates me until someone points out the obvious to me.:doh:

[Chris]

Thanks Jimmy, I'd say that's about where it is and I'm not worried. Among others using the same springs & SR some have the opinion it should be moved an inch forward due to spring length. It's an issue of extensive discussion among cruiser owners like everything else. There's always proponents on both sides, I'm taking the wait & see approach. ;)

[Dirt Claude]

Looks good guys!

[Brody]

Jimmy-

The rear shackles hang down almost at a straight angle at the moment, but when flexed to the max, rotate to the back as they should do. If Chris experiences any problems with this after a trail test, we will notch the body mount bracket, grind and pop out the rivets, and move the rear mount forward about an inch. We knew this going into it. We knew that the springs were supposed to be an inch short, too. What we decided to do was to do the reversal anyway, see how it looked, see how it performed, then correct anything that wasn't working right. As it is, Chris gained a lot of flex both ways doing this, and would still gain more when he changes out his shocks for longer ones.

Sean-

The bracket on the press is one of the bumper brackets, in fact I am making a new one to replace one of the old mounts. What the bumper mount does is mount through 4 of the 6 holes in the front shackles, which also line up with the 4 or 6 holes in the frame. The extra holes are dependent on which model you put the mounts/shackles on. Anyway, we mounted the bumper with the top tow hooks, bolted the bumper mounting plates though the two pieces of steel (frame and shackle), then I welded the bumper mounting plates to the bumper. This way all the holes lined up perfectly with no drama at the cost of a little awkward welding...I had already redrilled all the holes that we were going to be using, with the new bumper mounts in place, so that aligning them inside the bumper would be less problematic.

About the only thing we didn't do was to permanently mount the skip plates. At the moment, only the tops are welded to the bumper and the rear(shackle side) merely rest against the shackles. If this works well, I will add gussets back to the bumper and maybe a plate that rides against the shackle...or maybe a return piece that incorporates using one of the spring bolts...Since the bumper needs to be able to be removed, this skip plate needs to go with it...

So how did it drive on the way home, Chris??

[Chris]

As I said in the first post "A plus was that my caster is now back where it should be and the front end isn't wandering like it was on the road." Much nicer ridenow, the stretch of I-70 on the way home that I never looked forward to is fine now. The road surface doesn't change my direction like it used to. :)

Final measure after driving and letting it settle in is a gain of an inch. Now it sits a bit front high but another inch puts me closer to 35's. Side to side it's within .25" unlike when I pulled out of the garage. ;)

Maybe another leaf in the rear will bring me back to level or higher in back which would be fine too.

Good work Pete! :thunb:

[Brody]

Between your unused OME spring pack, all my left over Alcan, Wrangler, Superlift and Yota spring parts, we can add a leaf, no sweat....

Glad to hear about the nice ride! Now for the trail test...gotta be something out Yankee hill Russel Gulch way with some bumps/hills/dips/rocks. Sounds like it may be a bit too much Oh My God 2wd road, but there has to be some stuff to try. I need to do a bit of trail testing on the 63" Chevy and new (longer...yes!) shocks myself...


Oh dear...I just noticed that my 'level' is down! The other day I needed only like 70 something points and my level was up to 70++ percent. Now I need 212 points and my level is in the low 40s....did I get more demerits again??? You know I hate getting demerits...

[Chris]

Between your unused OME spring pack, all my left over Alcan, Wrangler, Superlift and Yota spring parts, we can add a leaf, no sweat....

Glad to hear about the nice ride! Now for the trail test...gotta be something out Yankee hill Russel Gulch way with some bumps/hills/dips/rocks. Sounds like it may be a bit too much Oh My God 2wd road, but there has to be some stuff to try. I need to do a bit of trail testing on the 63" Chevy and new (longer...yes!) shocks myself...

I sure hope not, Oh My God is paved now. BTW, that was probably the first mountain road Barb & I drove after moving here. Kind of bummed when I drove pavement last year.


Oh dear...I just noticed that my 'level' is down! The other day I needed only like 70 something points and my level was up to 70++ percent. Now I need 212 points and my level is in the low 40s....did I get more demerits again??? You know I hate getting demerits...

Someday I'll post what all the fancy colors, numbers, levels and percentages mean. FYI, removing that was what caused the server errors yesterday while we worked. I guess it'll stay! :lol:

[Chris]

It looks like FJ80 shocks will give me the extra couple inches of travel I'm lacking now. May be able to find something from an 80 owner that went bigger.

[Chris]

I decided yesterday that i do want to move the rear shackle forward too. ;)

[Brody]

Let me know what your time schedule is and I will be glad to help you do this. We are looking at between 2 and 3 hours start to finish..

[Chris]

Great Pete, I'll get in touch. :thunb:

Figure that would be a good time to swap front shocks. Still checking on what to use.

[Chris]

Let me know what your time schedule is and I will be glad to help you do this. We are looking at between 2 and 3 hours start to finish..

We got this done yesterday, thanks again Pete. The 2 or 3 hours stretched in to 5 or 6 but we got it done. There's always a few things that add more time, a boogered thread here, a stubborn rivet there. In our case it was more like 6 stubborn bolts. The rear hangars are an inch forward of where they were and the shackle angle is much improved. :thunb:

[Brody]

The things that you don't figure on:

Rivets that pop right out of American rigs after you grind the head off, certainly DO NOT do that in a Toyota of the same vintage. I don't know if Toyota stuck these in super hot or not, but Chris railed on these to get them to drive through. We pretty much ended up drilling them all out into the frame rails...Ah yes...there were 4 per side..I did the bushings on a friend of Stephanies Bronco and these punched through easily when the heads were ground down no problem...

Boogered threads on speciality bolts...another problem and funny cause Chris had spares that he brought over the first time, but left them at home this time...I mean, we weren't going to need them were we? We had just taken everything apart the week before...Heck, I wouldn't have brought them either...The two spares we had were for the top (bigger)...

Anyway, done deal. Chris and I were talking about the stuff that you don't anticipate is what throws projects off...