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Installing RE boomerang shackles...

The Adam Blaster

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Alberta
I've got some boomerang shaped shackles for my '98 XJ and there's no picture of how they are supposed to be installed.
Is the "elbow" or bend in the shackle supposed to be pointing toward the rear or the front?
 
The elbow faces the front.

P7150001.jpg
 
Last edited:
Hmmm... another question...

I was assuming that the shackle gets bolted to the rear eye-hole of the springs, but your picture kind of looks like that area of the center of the Jeep???
 
From factory, the boomerang ones will give me an extra inch to inch and a half of lift.
I didn't specifically order boomerangs, they came with the lift.

Anyone look at my pics in that link?
I think i have it set up correctly, just want an extra couple of "Yup, bolt 'em up."'s to add some confidence.
I hate doing things twice, and it would suck if i put them on wrong and they didn't work properly...
 
Bolt Em Up #1

How many more do you need? Yeah i looked at your pics and as long as thats the rear of the spring you got em on there correctly... Post some pics of tha jeep lifted...
 
uncc civilengineer said:
No offense but you have 3700 posts on Pirate and are questioning about how to hook up a boomerang shackle.... just curious what do you post about?

LOL I didnt notice but that is quite interesting! I'm anxious to hear the answer. It's always seemed to me that once you get that many posts it would be boring... hell you already know most that there is to know! and after 3700 posts shouldn't you already know how to post a pic?
 
Well lowrange, whenever it actually gets finished, i'll be happy to post pics.
I started yesterday about 5:00 pm and had a friend helping me. We worked until 10:30 and really didn't get much accomplished despite how sore and tired we both felt at the end.
Everything was seized in place pretty good. We did cut the old u-bolts, well 3 of them. I don't want to cut too much in case i run across a buyer for the old lift. (3" old one, 4.5" new one)
We basically got the axle disconnected from the springs, and that was about it. When we shut 'er down last night, the springs still had 3 out of 4 bolts holding them in place.
Today i worked by myself and got 2 more out, but the last one is stripped on the inside.
It's the pass. side front bolt. It just keeps spinning, and i can barely get a small flat screwdriver in between the head of the bolt and the bracket, but prying it out can't be an option because there must be a nut inside there still on the end of the bolt right?
I think if i drill a small (about 2") diameter hole that's just big enough to slide a socket through, i sould be able to grab onto the nut...
That's the best solution i have though up so far.
To visual what i'm trying to say think of the "frame" rail as a capital "U".
On the left side is the center of the Jeep, and on the right is where the bolt pushes through.
If i drill a hole on the left side, as long as i drill it right in line with the bolt, i should be able to get a socket on the end.
Agree/disagree? Anyone?

Anyways, i have yet to even start on the front components yet.

Oh, and the other main difficulty we ran into last night was when we had all the u-bolts off, the axle was still stuck onto the spring packs. We had the shocks off, disconnected all the brake lines, and parking break cables, but the axle wouldn't come off.
We determined that we should cut the bolts holding the spring packs together.
Did that, levered each individual leaf apart in turn, and then the axle let go, but held onto that center bolt.
I think when i installed the 3" kit 4 years ago, we ended up pressing the locator nub thing at the bottom of the spring packs into the too-tight hole on the spring perches.
The instructions for the RE 4.5 kit i have now says i have to expand those holes to fit the larger diamater locator nubs.
When we cut off the bolts flush with the surface of the spring perches, there was still a little chunk left inside that would block the new pin from sitting in the hole.
Some drilling and wedging with a screw driver fixed that. But that was a pain in the ass to get the piece to a small enough diameter that it would slide out through the slit between the spring perch and the axle tube.
I did the scond one tyoday by myself a little differently.
I jammed a screw driver under the perch, and under the chunk of bolt. I made sure it was all lined up and then i started hitting the screw driver handle with a hammer. This forced the chunk of bolt up and back into the hole. I knew i couldn't push it all the way through with this method, but i got as far as i could, then grinded the top part off. When i pulled the screw driver out, i hammered the reamining piece back down the hole, and it was now small enough to fall out. Took about 10 mins compared to last night when it took about 40 or so worth of drilling and trying to hold the chunk in position with a screw driver...

Ah well, lots of fun wrendhing this weekend, i'm hoping to have some friends stop by to lend a hand a few nights this week.
 
uncc civilengineer said:
No offense but you have 3700 posts on Pirate and are questioning about how to hook up a boomerang shackle.... just curious what do you post about?

Would you accept the answer "I ask a lot of questions over there"? lol

Actually, on pirate i stay mostly in chit chat, and in previous years your chit chat posts would actually count towards your post count, they don't any longer.
I started off strictly in the tech sections because i was (and still am) building a buggy.
But for so long i haven't had any progress on the buggy, and haven't had anything to add, i stay in chit-chat.
It actually got frustrating reading all these guys building a buggy in a matter of months, and i had the axles, cage, tires etc for a couple of years and hadn't gotten anywhere, so to escape the mental anguish that i was solely responsible for, i kept away from most of the tech sections. :wierd: lol

But to be honest, i've never looked that closely at any boomerang shackle, so when i took mine out of the box and got the bolt through it, i thought i should ask some other folks before i did it wrong.
 
The Adam Blaster said:
Would you accept the answer "I ask a lot of questions over there"? lol

Actually, on pirate i stay mostly in chit chat, and in previous years your chit chat posts would actually count towards your post count, they don't any longer.
I started off strictly in the tech sections because i was (and still am) building a buggy.
But for so long i haven't had any progress on the buggy, and haven't had anything to add, i stay in chit-chat.
It actually got frustrating reading all these guys building a buggy in a matter of months, and i had the axles, cage, tires etc for a couple of years and hadn't gotten anywhere, so to escape the mental anguish that i was solely responsible for, i kept away from most of the tech sections. :wierd: lol

But to be honest, i've never looked that closely at any boomerang shackle, so when i took mine out of the box and got the bolt through it, i thought i should ask some other folks before i did it wrong.


I guess it never hurts to ask questions... I installed my lift with the help of one friend in about 8 hours in one night... Later that week i went back and installd RE Drop Brackets. I too had mass difficulties with the front bolt in both Leaf springs but the problem turned out to be that the bolt was rusted to the metal sleeve that stays in the bushing... I hadn't stripped out the bolt... so all i did was cut the bolt as close to the leaf spring as i could and bent the spring perch out and hit it one time with a BFH and out she came, not to make you ill but the back took maybe 2 hours to complete... Getting the control arms to line up in the front was another thing... it took a while. good luck... take pics! and stay on NAXJA and make your post number that high here and you'll learn somthing.
 
I would have liked to move a lot quicker and at this point have a lot more of the job accomplished. But other than the multiple weird problems we had pop up that i've mentioned, i didn't mention that my right arm is paralysed from a motorcycle accident about 10 years ago. So, my progress when working alone is somewhat hindered...
Actually, it's hindered when i'm not working alone as well! lol
 
You are building a buggy and don't know how to mount a boomerang? Yikes, not gonna touch that one. And to end all of the spobi in here about boomerangs, they are designed to work with aftermarket leaf springs that are longer eye to eye, such as BOR Alcans. They do also give varying amounts of lift, but that is not the purpose of their design, a regular lift shackle can accomplish that.
 
91 Jeep Project said:
You are building a buggy and don't know how to mount a boomerang? Yikes, not gonna touch that one.

Well, the buggy has air shocks and no leafs, so i didn't need to know how to mount boomerang shackles! :spin1:
 
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