I am in the process of installing an OME lift on an 83 and I am a little concerned with the shakle angle, granted I do not have the axle bolted up and the weight of the vehicle on the leafs however I thought i would post a few pics and see what your guys's thoughts were. Also the OME shackles are a different design and I wanted to check and make sure that I have the flared shackle or the one with the extra tab positioned correctly. Thanks in advance

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/...-54-46_863.jpg

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/...-56-32_352.jpg

 

From my understanding, the new shackles should be mounted like this. These are on my '81 longbed. Hopefully someone with "for sure" experience will chime in. There is no info that I could find confirming my install.

 

You know I was thinking the same as what you have pictured but I guess I tried to figure out why they designed them in that manner and the only thing I could come up with was that it is to more or less limit the amount of travel/movement I just can't determine which direction they were supposed to go.

 

This is what I received as a reply from ARB's Tech
The “J” should point to the front of the truck or to the center of the spring"

The J is to hit the frame and not allow the shackle to go over center Hope that make sense

 

This is how my shackles are sitting at the moment to after a 3" lift. I have talked to other yotatecher's about this and I plan to cut the hangers loose and scoot them a few inches forward so the bottom of the shackle point to the back and the top of the shackle points toward the front of the truck. Pretty much the opposite of what it is now. There is a discussion about this on the first page of my build someone posted. I plan to to this to my truck Thursday afternoon.

 

As an update I got the front in and loaded the flat bed up with two 33 gallon garbage cans filled with water and the angle was a bit better I will likely move the hangers at a later date but would still like to see how it turns out when the leafs finally settle out. I had to go back out to work but will update pictures in a few weeks

 

Shackles should be mirrored to be right angle.

:wabbit2:

 

I moved mine up 3" to fix my angle. You can see it in my build.