Shackle Flip Kit - The Official Armor Tech Offroad Thread!

yeah. The mounts on the bottom for the spring attachment are angled in a little.



you can kind of see it on the left one here.

 

Thought I'd share some info and see if it helps anyone.
One of my older techs saw one of the young guys struggling to cut off some rivets on ball joints. He told him cut an X with cut off wheel and then use the air hammer from the side.

They shot right off.

 

Yeah except when you have to try and get either an air hammer or cut off inside the frame. I took my bed off to do the rear suspension and it was still a PITA.

 

I cut the tops of the rivets off with a sawzall, then tapped them out with a drill. It was super easy. 90* drill is a must, but it works really well.

 

I'm thinking they might not be all exactly alike lol. I seriously had to cut the spare tire frame support to get them loosened up. Maybe rust.

 

I just mocked mine up tonight. They look strait on.

Left pass side lined right up with the front hanger


Right pass side lined right up with the front hanger


Waiting for paint to dry now before I install them, but before I do Ill run two string-lines and measure to see if I need to adjust the angle at all. They eye up great so I think this side is spot on. Worst case I shim 2 bolts out to get it perfect.

I did the same but with a cut off wheel.

Cut off both sides.

ground bottom rivets flush.

Ran a 1/4" drill bit right up the center of the riven about 1/4" deep so my punch wouldn't jump around.

Inserted punch into hole and held with vise grips.

Pounded the bottoms out with a sledge.

Drilled out holes to fit new bolts.

Once the bottoms were loose I pounded the shackle hanger away from the frame and the top came loose immediately.

Ground those down flush, drilled, punched through, drilled to fit new bolts.

About 30 minutes total for the pass side tonight.

Only tools used besides a C clamp, 11/16" drill bit, and tube of tooling wax for the bits:


The bottom rivets wanted to take the rear spare tire supports with them so I had to c clamp them down before hitting them out.

Rivets could of been hotter and pressed in more on your production run

 

Subbed

 

So I seem to recall that someone had gotten a custom Alcan pack made to work with this setup (not like all of the other packs that are built to work with the inverted shackle). Now I can't find that info or who it was. Anybody know how that worked out and/or who it was?

 

Stuffed a 12" travel shock in mine... today was the first test drive. Still got some tweaking to do, but I have to wait until the new springs get broken in and I get my rear bumper (weight) back from powder before I work on the angles and final adjustments.



Had to extend my bumps, but Ill take over 29" of droop any day for a little less up travel and zero need for limit straps.

 

Just be sure to keep an eye on your ebrake cable when droop that far. John Andrews was having issues with his rear brakes. We thought this was the culprit.

 

A pair of wire cutters will fix that

 

Haha ^ true story.

 

29" of droop?

 

I already disconnected the e-brakes, speed censors, and my already extended brake lines.

Bending and making a custom bracket for the brakes and speed censors.

I'm using 1/4" shock cord doubled up to keep the e-brake cable from dragging over everything. Keeps it out of the way, cheap, simple, and will allow plenty of flex when need be.

29-1/4" is my total from bottom of shock mount shaft to center of lower eye.... not really droop, but extended length.

 

Subd

 

I can vouch for this as true. At full droop with the redone shocks I was able to pop the e-brake cable loose by accident. All fixed now, but was an annoying oversight.

 

Did my flip kit tonigh. Getting the rivets out was by far the most difficult part. Added a leaf to my Dakar pack (

$77 d29xl leaf spring

d29xl), ATO shackle flip, all pro Ubolt flip, and extended brake lines. 5 hours total. 3 hours of which were spent on getting the rivets out. Bear in mind I have never done this type of thing before. Wanted to let everyone know about one of my findings. When you are removing the lower bottom rivets many people are having difficulty because the rivets will come out of the frame but be stuck in the spare tire cross member. I had this same problem and was resorting to using a C clam Etc. Then I reolized that there is a tack weld that attaches the top of the rivet to the top side of the cross member . I cut all 4 tack welds with a dremel and then they were much easier to get out. Figured I would pass along that little bit of information. These tack welds are only on the bottom rivets. Everything else was very straight forward and the design is solid. Good luck

 

Spencer, great tip on the rivets. We never saw that on our 05 but that doesn't mean we missed it. Also, Thanks for the pics. Your truck is looking great.

 

Thanks!! One thing that i did add was washers to the bolt side of the kit. The kit only comes with 8 washers. I wanted washers on both sided (bolt side and nut side). Maybe you could include those in your kits if it wouldn't be too much additional cost to you guys. The kit works perfectly and gave me about an extra inch in the rear. It also gave me a lot more downward flex and that is crucial when keeping the rubber on the ground is the name of the game. Thanks for the great product ATO. Are you guys still developing greasable shackles for the second gens? I am very interested in replacing my stock shackles with nicer ones. I also would like if they had the flex pivot. I don't know exactly what its called but it keeps the shackles/leafs from binding when your vehicle is off camber. Thanks!