Bolt stuck in CB spring shackle

I decided to FINALLY install my Icon 3 leaf spring pack last night. I picked up a set of factory leaves a while back with 1000 miles on them, figuring my factory leaves would be in rougher shape. So after disassembling the new spring pack, rebuilding it with the icon parts, and swapping out the factory bushings for some poly bushings, I tore in to my truck thinking I’d just swap out some parts real quick. Ya, really quick…

First, I snapped all 8 bolts holding my air bag brackets on. No bid deal, I think. I can get some more of those at the hardware store. Buts it’s now 1AM so that will be in the morning. So I plod along with one side of the truck and after fighting the sway bar, spare tire that shifted, an alignment dowel on the bottom of the spring pack that wont’t line up properly, a shackle that doesn’t want to seat over the new bushings, and the notorious shackle bolts on the drivers side that don’t line up perfectly, I get driver’s side spring in and loosely bolted up.

So now it’s time for the passenger’s side. The shackle bolts and front spring hanger bolt all come undone, I pull the top shackle bolt out, drop the spring and it comes out. But while attempting to remove the Coach Builder shackle from this side to transfer to the new springs, I realize that the bolt is stuck. It appears to be seized in the metal sleeve in the bushing. So I pull out the ball peen and take a swing at it after hosing it down with some PB blaster. As the hammer contacts the bolt I see I forgot to put the nut back on. Doh. Boogered those threads. Pull out the grinder to “shave” those boogered threads, turn the nut back on, and start swinging away.

But nothing. So I pull out the ball joint press and rig it up. Impact gun ratttattattt!!!! Nope, no dice. Crap. Bigger hammer with the bolt head over a shallow socket? Nope, just chipped the concrete. Grrr..

By now it’s 3AM and I figure it’s time to either walk away and get a few hours shut eye, or start making some bad decisions. So I pull out the torch, the sawzall, and the grinder and promptly decide to walk away. I figure I’ll go searching for a replacement bolt in the morning and just clip the frozen bolt on bolt sides with the sawzall or cutoff wheel. Well, it’s Saturday so only the box stores and farm/ ranch stores are open. While I find replacement carriage bolts that I snapped earlier and a fair selection of metric bolts, I can’t find an m14x2.0 x 6” long bolt. And I need my truck up and running.

Back to my place to figure some stuff out. I recall stashing the factory shackles away somewhere; it was only 100k miles ago so they should be here somewhere, right? After digging through a few boxes, I found them! But that means i have to pull the other side apart and replace the CB shackle that I already installed, too. Poo… we’ll, I guess that’s what’s gotta happen. So I made it happen.

But as I assembled the u bolts they appeared a little short. Turns out I had grabbed the set of u bolts that came with the take-off leaf pack, and not the set that Icon supplies. Back to the storage bins… But I found them, gosh darn it!

Then I thought to check the rear brake pads since I knew they were getting a little thin. Ya, less than a millimeter of pad on two pads, not much more than that on the other two. Sure got my monies worth out of those! Luckily, I had those pads on hand so they got swapped.

While I was at it, I swapped in some new 5160’s in the rear and decided to chance putting my new 6112’s up front. The front’s ended up taking me about two hours to swap out. My brain about exploded.

So now I have to figure out how to get that shackle off the old spring. I suppose I’m fine running the factory shackles for a while. I figure I can either heat up the bolt which will destroy the busing and make a mess, cut the bolt with a sawzall or maybe a deep cut bandsaw which will also most likely destroy the bushing and maybe damage the shackle, or try smooshing the bolt through the shackle with a press and risk catastrophic LT exploding everything.

Any other ideas? Or just toss it and move on..?

 

Sounds like quite the adventure. You probably dont want extended shackles witj those new springs anyways right?

 

The shackles are +1's so they aren't much longer than stock. With the topper and weight in the bed, the shackles plus the springs wouldn't give it too much rake.

My goal was to get just a little bit of lift to counter the extra weight so that I didn't have to run as much air in the bags. I used to run 10-15 psi but lately have been setting it at 30-40 as the springs have sagged.