ive got a 62 merc monterey. A old time was telling me today how they used to flip their shackles to lift the ass of the car. Im curious about this because the leaf spring is attached to the upper part of my shackle then the lower part attached to the mount. If i reversed this would i get a lower ride?
They used to do this to RAISE the back of the car when the jacked up look was in fashion. Now known as the Gasser look. It was also an easy way to get clearance for wider tires (anyone remember Mad Dawgs?). The quick way to do it was to put the car on the hoist down at the gas station, take a giant crowbar and flip the shackle over.
A lot of guys that flipped their shackles broke the shock mounts after a period of time. No such thing as a free lunch.
It got interesting when a big bump flipped one back the right way. One side drops, and you get a wild swerve across the road! My '54 Bel Aire did that to me a few times before I smartened up.
Yep....and it never raised the car as much as you thought it would. ....but those were fun times in the old half-ass days I never did the flip, but did make long shackles in shop class for my 56 chev ht. It did not lift as much as the shackle was lengthened. One kid had a 55 ht, that had the best 2 tone new metallic paint in town; he put wood 2x4's jambed into the crotch of the front A arms to raise the front. Even in the burger joint lot, it bounced like a forklift with no suspension.
"Fun times in the half ass days"-well put. Before shackles were flipped to raise the rear, the thing to do was lower the rear. I used to get a ride to school on occasion from a guy who filled his trunk with bricks to achieve "the look". The bricks would click and squeak when they rubbed together. Even as a junior high kid, I thought it was kind of half ass, but it beat walking.
I did this to my dad's 63 1/2 fastback Galaxie back about 1969. It was the first cool thing I ever did to a car,but I can't remember how I convinced him to let me do it.
Customer's 64 Ford hardtop in 1968, the first gas station I worked at. He also replaced the middle 2 of the 4 headlights with "ram air" hoses to the air filter.
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