Settle down. No need to get bent out of shape; we'll torque it out later.

Time and again I've made mention and provided coverage of my ongoing war with my rear suspension.  If I assess the situation honestly, I'd have to say that this fight has been the biggest consumer of time, patience, and thought, while also racking up the highest wasted-dollar amount over any other of Gremlin's systems that I've worked on over the past 10 months or so.

The lastest go-round has actually been a continuation of prior conflicts, rather than a new engagement, but what had been left as "let some weight sit on the springs and come back to it later" became a problem that needed to be dealt with sooner than later when I noticed that the new springs were experiencing shackle inversion.  I wasn't okay with letting the leafs settle in on their own because of the risk that they'd bend inwards, instead of laying flat.

After several attempts to pop the shackles out in the right direction, I decided I had two options: temporarily remove a leaf from these 4-leaf packs so that things could flex and break in more easily, or temporpermanarily use the dreaded AutoZone lift shackles to sort things out.

While I'm not keen on the potential effects on my overall suspension geometry and my diff's pinion angle, I'd much rather swap out shackles after a bit than have two sessions of dis/reassembling my leaf packs.

I'm currently having a smoke break while writing this, and haven't yet torqued all the fasteners down.  Even loosely assembled, there's been some significant change from the 1-3/4" that has been added to the shackle center-to-center space.  Both rear shocks actually fit, for one.   Correct direction of the shackle rotation is another good change.  My rear wheels appear to be resting the correct distance from the front, and it looks like I'll be in the neighborhood of an acceptable stick-out length for my slip yoke.  These are all changes I'm more than happy to see, but there are also some less pleasant developments. . . Thankfully, not many.

Presently, the pinion angle is sitting at a 1° negative angle, in contrast to the 1-3° positive angle it should have.  This can be corrected, but I really don't want to have to buy and install shims for something that should be a temporary condition.

Then there's the matter of this. . .

I obviously don't have a problem with broadcasting to the world the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing, but I don't want to do it while I'm driving.

Oh well.  Here's hoping that my victories are strengthened and my setbacks diminished once I get things torqued down.  Back to the front!