disadvantage of shackles??

[XJING]

run shackles on all the lifts i have ever done. better articulation, I brought my xj down to 2" cus its really a parts getter for other projects now, and i used teraflex shackles ans spacers, with new heavy duty quadratec (crown) leaf springs, havent had any sag in close to two years. hope to never have any. Good Luck.

 

[fordtech]

Wow, lot's of SPOBI goin on in this thread.

Nothing wrong with shackles.
Your (and everyone else's) OEM leaf springs use them.
There is absolutely no reason they should cause your leafs to flatten out or sag prematurely to any noticable degree.

I don't know anyone who runs a lifted XJ that doesn't use aftermarket extended shackles.
They are essential for decent articulation.

Agreed.

Shackles dont hurt the leaves one bit by themselves. What causes sagging is that the shackles allow more travel (arching and flattening) of the leaves, which with more heavier articulating can cause more 'wear' on the leaves. The leaves also tend to get into negative arch situations more often also. So if you have 2 identical street xj's one with a shackle and one without, you really shouldnt see a big difference in the life of the spring between the two. All that shackle is doing is changing the attachment point, it isnt putting any extra leverage on the spring.....the only way that could happen is if the opposite end was fixed.