Leaf spring shackles

In another posting someone adeptly noticed that one of my U-Bolts on my leaf spring shackles was crooked. I checked it and found this to be so. I was able to tap it back vertical and tighten it further. Now, is this something that should have been installed, driven, and retightened? I figure there is a certain amount of break in with new leafs, something I had not considered.

 

Whenever I remove and replace u-bolts, or anything that I want to insure that doesn't loosen up after a while, I tighten it with a torque wrench, I have a craftsman, and a Harbor Freight 1/2". I leave the craftsman in the toolbox and keep the Harborfreight with me in the vehicle. It is amazing how much things can loosen up, and with just a socket wrench, you don't realize how much. With the cheapie HF torque wrench, you can set the wrench to lower setting to see what the torque has reduced to before tightening up. On U-bolts, make sure that the bolts are tightened evenly.

I stop checking the nuts when I can check them and find that they haven't moved since the last time.

I have the same recommendations for U-joints.

 

I think you mean u-bolts, not shackles. Shackles are the pivoting links at the end of the spring.

U-bolts technically are not supposed to re-used or retightened multiple times, they stretch with each torquing and will loose resiliency. But in real life I imagine you could get away with tightening them up a bit.

On a fresh installation I would approach the torque value gradually and tighten all four nuts evenly in multiple stages.

 

We used all new U-bolts and nuts. This was a Kaiser/Willy refurb kit, so everything was new. I am currently looking for proper torque values. Seems putting them on real tight is not good enough.

 

They stretch when first put on. I used the same ones. You will to check them two or three times before they set in right