XJUSMC

97 country

I ordered some 2 inch shackles to fix my sag in the rear.

You experts have any tips or tricks for an easy install. It looks like a straight forward install, any thing I should expect or be prepared for.

I went with the shackles because I plan on doing a 3 inch leaf pack in the future when I do my lift.

thanks.

OOdynamite

Make sure you soak the bolts in pb blaster before you try to take them off. I recommend 2 times a day for the whole week leading up to you actually removing the old shackles.

kskate86

have an impact gun handy

rustface

just to add on a question... if the shackle doesn't come with bolts:

Does a typical hardware store have these bolts? I assume they should be replaced not re-used, right?

ken72

Here is what I did. First I was lucky not to need the PB blaster. Just a good breaker bar and some muscle.

First I broke the bolts loose before I did anything else. I did not want to work on those bolts while it was on jacks. Once I got the bolt loose then I jacked the rear up from the hitch and just to the point of getting the weight off the tires but not enough to actualy raise the tires off the ground. I finished removing the bolts. Once you get them out of the nut you can start jacking the jeep up more or less until you can wiggle the bolts out by hand. At this point you will need to start raising the jeep more until you can fit the shackle in and then attach the leaf. You may have to use the braker bar to pry the shackle down enough to slide the bolt in the lower part of the shackle. I had to use a block to set the jack on to raise the rear enough. It was quite simple and I am sure you will not have any issues.

I did my shackles alone but I was lucky to have Wintson on the forum lend a hand with my 2 inch front pucks.

ken72

I just reused my bolts and the shackles should come with bolts. I did find that the bolts did not fit the same. They were a hair smaller.