Originally Posted by 4.3L XJ

Good question. The extended shackles that come with kits are only about 2-3" longer. Personally I am not a fan of this type of lift. But it can be done as long as the rear of the spring is still higher than the front. The rear of the spring is longer and therefore weaker than the front because they both have the same amount and thickness of leaves. Having the rear of the spring higher equalizes the pressure on it. They do this so the rear of the spring can flex a little more and make the ride better. Detroit has been doing this since the 50s. But in this case, his shackle is long enough to move the rear of the spring below the position of the front. Now the designed geometry is backwards and the back of the spring is supporting more weight than the front. A leaf spring can only take so much flex before loosing its temper and memory. This is the classic thing that happens to add a leaves. They get bent beyond where they can retain their temper and then start to sag.

So the bottom line here is not that he has extended shackles, but they are way too long.

Originally Posted by Cherokee 4.0

Ill have to check that


The lean was like that before i did the rear lift but after i did the front lift with shocks, the shocks i put on were old rough countrys that were shot

Originally Posted by muddeprived

Why would you run shocks that are shot?

Originally Posted by FlyingLow

No you can not do shackles in the front. It's a fixed mount. I meant adding plate and moving the hole lower to keep the lift but correct the extra long shackle and poor spring pack angle. If you do that in the front the rear shackle only needs to be half the length to have the same amount of lift (ie instead of a 9.5 shackle you'd have a 4.25 shackle and drop the front mount 4.25 for the same lift but better ride and longer spring life)

Originally Posted by muddeprived

Why would you run shocks that are shot?

Originally Posted by FlyingLow

I'd start at 7, then go to 6 if you need to. It's easy to remove material, but hard to add it.

Originally Posted by Cherokee 4.0

i ended up doing 5.5 inchs eye to eye to keep it on the low side, i came out with this

Originally Posted by Cherokee 4.0

so after adding more leafs and making the shackles smaller, i still have a lean to one side, but not as much, the front left barely looks lifted, and the passenger side front and back look healthy, i am thinking it has to be the shot shock up front pulling it down? ITs depressing seeing it lean to one side after all this work.

Originally Posted by muddeprived

Go out there and measure from the middle of your wheel cap to the bottom of the flare (middle). stock is 17.5" front, 17" rear. Find out what your measurements are at each corner so we know how much lift you are running and what corner is sagging and how much.

Try disconnecting the shocks, sway bar, and trackbar. See what happens then. If it's none of them causing it, then it's ur springs that are bad. Did you check your brake lines, breather hoses, and parking brakes for proper length? You said you got the lift off another jeep and the shocks were worn out meaning it could've been old or well-used so you can't expect perfect springs. You may have to fine tune it with coil spacers.

Originally Posted by caged

check your rear leafs, see if one has more arch than the other.
mine did that after installing brand new RE leafs, thought it was a coil.

also, did you torque everything with the jeep on the ground, or on the jack.
maybe one of the shackles is sticking. are they both on the same angle?