UPDATE: JOB DONE!!
Montana 3280RL, 2001, ALKO Axles, 35 inch axle spread
Ordered my parts from
www.esourcetrailerparts.com - best price I could find. I decided to just order the shackle parts, new bolts, nuts, and bushings. Came to $34. Shipping initially was $51 (!), and I thought that was a little high, so I called. I was referred to Lynn, who's first remark was "
HOW MUCH???
Turns out they had just set up their website, and their supplier said to add a buck to each item - that should cover freight. Well, a buck freight for a bolt is a little steep, so she corrected the problems, and my freight was $7. Total = $41.00
Took us about 3 1/2 hours to do shackles on both sides. We ran into a problem getting the second shackle plate to go on after we passed the bolts thru the spring and the equalizer. The bolts went into the spring and equalizer ok, but they were at a slight angle, and the second shackle plate would not fit over the bolts - the bolts were too far apart. We resorted to wedging a couple of blocks of wood between the spring and the bottom of the frame, just above the point where the shackle bolt passes through the spring. Then we put a bottle jack underneath the equalizer and slowly raised the jack, pushing the ends of the bolts close enough together so that we could slip on the second shackle plate. We needed to do that on both the front and rear set of shackles on the passenger side.
Figuring out that little engineering problem cost us a good 45 minutes of experimenting, before we hit on the solution.
The worst shackle had less than 1/8 inch of metal left!! We did mine just in time!!
It took two of us, a pneumatic wrench, lots of 6X6 blocks for the frame, umpteen jacks (we had 6, that was plenty, but several needed jack oil to work - glad we found that out!), plus the usual box of socket wrenches etc.
It took as much time to set up each side of the trailer on blocks, so we felt safe underneath it, as it did to actually swap out the shackles.
TIP We found that a 1/4 inch X 6 inch socket extension fit the holes perfectly, and we used this to drive out the old bushings.
My thanks to Stiles and Noneck for the advice and photos - it helped immensely!
This forum is the greatest out there!
Al S.
Linear Mode
