shackle hits bumper bolts

hey all. happy new year.

my shackle hits one of the bolts that holds my rear bumper on. on both
sides, the bottom outtermost bumper bolt sticks out far enough to bite
the shackle if i flex much or hit a speedbump.

easy solution: take the bolt out...but the head snapped right off, and
now the bolt is uber stuck. on the passenger side, the sleeve that the
bolt threads through came loos, so the whole bolt spins but wont come
out.

the shackles have places where you can see the bolt has hit the
shackle. when sitting on a level surface, the shackle is close enough
to the bolt where i cant fit an open ended wrench over the end of the
bolt to hold the nutsleeve thing (if i had a wrench big enough, but i
dont).

i have rubicon express shackles (RE2700 Shackle XJ Rear 1.25" Lift) these shackles are designed with a crescent shaped recess specifically so they will clear the bumper bolts, but they still hit mine for some reason.

has anybody else ran into something like this? i imagine i will have to cut the bumper bolts off since the head broke off anyways.

thanks
-Tim

drill the bolt out, replace with a new bolt, once it's in, cut the part that the shackle hit's.

I've got the RRO shackle (1.5" lift). I had the same problem, maybe worse as the RRO shackle does not seem to be relieved at the bumper bolt location.

I was fortunate enough to have both offending bolts come out with no issues. I intended this as a temporary fix but am not too worried about the 2 missing bolts...

Best of luck with removing the bolts (as I recall access is pretty poor inside that bumper bracket piece).

you are right about the access being tight. i ended up having to take the blade out of a hack saw and using it like a nail file to cut the bolts off. they were STUCK, it takes a lot of stuck to snap the head off a grade 8 bumper bolt. anyways, there is a lot more clearance now. hopefully it should clear now.

thanks
-tim

jeepnuts311 said:

i ended up having to take the blade out of a hack saw and using it like a nail file to cut the bolts off.

Click to expand...

I've done the "nail file" technique myself cutting old steel pipe in a wall cavity during some bathroom renovations - very tough on the fingers...

Hopefully this does the trick for ya!