Following on from my successful credit crunch shackles Credit crunch Shackles

I decided to modify an old set of spring hanger plates, to save replacing my nearly new Monroe rear shocks with extended ones, im aware that there are various shock extender brackets but I'd rather not go down that road.

The theory on this is to re configure the spring hanger plate in order that the shock mounting pin sits 2 inches higher to compensate for the 2 inch shackle lift.

I cut both plates this afternoon and made a template for the new piece of plate, just need to source 2 high tensile m14 bolts and get them welded up, but that will be Monday now.

Before and after pics to follow

U do love welding

I do miss it mate, I was the one part of being a panel beater and restoring cars that I really enjoyed, although competent in joining 2 bits of metal together and making repair panels, im no fabricator though, hats off to those guys, wish I had the skills, patience and equipment to build stuff from scratch

Well I got the bolts which were in fact M16's I also sourced a piece on 5mm steel plate, so off to work I went, unfortunately my diamond cutting disc shattered and took a chunk out of the back of my hand, thankfully I had gloves on if I didn't it would have been much worse, anyway I'll crack on with them again tomorrow.
On the way home tonight I got the dreaded flashing Green light, so that'll be another job on the list

Be good to see the modifications coming to light, free/cheap mods is always a winner.

I think i'll stick with dropping the top fixing point though,

Yeah I did think of dropping the pin at the top but there was about an inch and a half play moving it to sit directly on top of the chassis which may have been enough but my shackles hav lifted it almost 2 and a half inches so moving the pin on the bottom gives that little extra travel in the shocker.
I didnt fancy the shock spacers as youlll have metal on metal contact going through the pin at the bottom which would now be un bushed and will wear over time especially if used off road and could put undue stress on the pin.
What I'm proposing does the same as the shock spacer but uses a heavier duty pin and keeps the same factory configuration, and probably most importantly like my shackles, it hasn't been done yet and I like pissing about and trying something away from the norm

Well done Gb. Sure will be interesting to see it.

Pics?

New bit of steel plate cut to shape and dressed, as are the new pins, all ready for welding tomorrow, need to get my own mig fixed so I don't have to keep getting a shot of other peoples.
Pics will follow when their all done and dusted, just can't get a minute to myself at the moment

My other thing i fancied trying was to move the shock position around abit and maybe straightening them up abit rather than loped right over,

I'm probably going to bring the pins in a an inch or so which will straighten the shocks slightly to compensate for them being a little shorter

Well I got them welded up and painted

Standard plate and modified plate
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And the old piece that was cut off, placed back on to show the difference
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And now painted
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Now just to pop them on tomorrow, I've got a new set of U bolts anyway

Looks well, get it test fitted then remove it and paint up...

Got them fitted tonight, pretty pleased all in all, used milners U bolts, and they are soft as shite and far too long, I managed to strip the threads on one just nipping them up with a 3/8 ratchet before even putting a torque wrench near them.
I put the old ones back on but their pretty rusty and have been on and off a few times before so will try and source better quality replacements, but they'll have to do for now.

Here they are anyway

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The pics make them look as if the shocker is tight against the axle but there is a gap of about an inch which is plenty, ive got a spare set of plates now so I might make another set in time and possibly tweak the design a little

Nice work indeed GB! Quite impressed. You should put them into production.

My milner U bolts snapped when i torqued them up, cheap, soft materials.

Had some Hi Tensile 'U' Bolts made up, cost me £15 a pair mind, still got some somewhere.

Back in my mk2 Escort days we used to use U bolts from hackney taxi's which were pretty good, I cant emphasise enough how shit the milners ones are, avoid them like the plague, I had them lying about from when I got my new springs about a year ago, if I had just bought recently them I'd be returning them, thank god none of my old ones snapped coming off

Looks ace! I used gkn u bolts when I fitted my springs. Feel tough as nails!

Massively off-topic but Hackney Carriages aka Manganeze Bronze Limited have gone bust. End of an era...

Reliability issue dodge i,m sure! Bet they are back within a week but new name¬!!!

Well, I'm due to fit some heavy components to the truck in the near future and I plan on getting a caravan in the spring and could be doing with a little more oomph, so I decided to have a bit of an experiment.
Like many classic owners I find these trucks pretty underpowered at 113 bhp for the size of lump under the bonnet and the fuel economy returned is pretty awful, so i wanted to try and improve things a bit without getting into overly complicated mods so I did consider a remap but wanted something that could easily be reversed and re-sold if meeds be, so i have settled on a genuine Mitsi upgrade kindly supplied by BMB.

There is a school of thought that at 77k this will spell disaster for my engine, however I go into this in the knowledge that few of these engines in standard fettle see much over 150k anyway and even by this stage have likely had the head off at least once.
I'm not hard on my truck and it doesn't routinely carry weight other than the Lardy driver, so we'll se how it goes.

Sounds good - what do you think you'll get it up to?

On paper it's supposed to take it up to 134 BHP, I take it that would be at the flywheel as opposed to the road wheels, it's already decatted and apollo'd so in theory it should be be closer to 140 odd but that would be on a new engine, after 77k wear and tear of components will reduce that slightly, but every little helps