Revolver Shackles

I have an indifferent opinion of them. I have a set of them I've used on my YJ. Currently I don't have them on; just not sure I really need the extra droop with the type of wheeling I currently do. If I ever get into serious rock crawling, them perhaps I'll put them back on. But when I did use them I had no problems, and they gave me an extra 6-8 inches of droop. Be sure your driveshaft, shocks, brake lines, etc, can handle this extra droop. In some Jeep forums, however, I've read where some people have had problems with them - but only from the SOA crowd. Never have heard of any malfunction from the SUA rigs (what mine is). The biggest complaint I've heard from the SOA guys is that they will open up when they aren't supposed to while climbing steep inclines, of course restricting the climbing ability. I did some fairly steep inclines in my SUA rig w/ the revolvers but did not experience this problem.

Cal Wheeler uses them too on his SOA YJ. Maybe he will add his comments.

Terry

Hey hey! Yep. I've got Teraflex Revolver Shackles. I have yet to go up a steep enough hill where the extra 6 inches of travel sent me flipping ass over teakettle. Some of the obstacles at Doran Loop in Calico that I just wheeled this weekend were extremely gnarly, and the Revolvers did not affect my ascents or descents negatively. Looking at the pics taken, I had more articulation than many of the others.

That said, none of the other 19 rigs in the group had 'em, and many of them made it up the same obstacles just fine. More gracefuly, even, but I'm chalking that up to better driver skills overall, and my lack of loooooow gearing.

Another point to consider is what some people say, that the extra articulation is not "usable" (sorta like "bad versus good cholesterol") because the full weight that could be on any tire is not there until the shackle refolds, hence less traction.

I'm no physics expert, but when I am climbing a ladder, or actually climbing real rocks with my real feet, having my foot a inch or 3 inches closer to a foot hold, or even having my foot planted, without putting my full weight on it, still means I'm more stable and am going to have better footing (i.e. traction) Real Soon.

Hell, the whole motion of walking itself is carefully controlled "not falling over". I picture the anti-teraflex crowd (the really rabid ones) locomoting by making sure all of their weight is at all times distributed and stabilized by sliding or "dragging" both feet, as well as both knuckles ;-)

Basically, they were the first mods I made to my stock Jeep, and I probably don't really need them (although they keep my spring hangers from bending). But I leave them on to give people something to talk about. ;-)

Thanks for your comments, Cal. I sure agree with you here - some footing is better than no footing at all. Now that I have both my front and rear axles put together (and now live in a place with some good wheeling), I plsn to slap those revolvers back on this spring and give them a real test!!

Hey Cal, have you seen the new Teraflex Revolver Z-box product? They supposedly work in conjunction with the revolver shackles to only allow one side to open at a time. Sounds like it could be a driveshaft saver.

Terry.

They're certainly easy enough to remove again. It would really take repeated runs over the same course with and without them to do a real objective test.

I did see that they had them, but never looked into it enough to see what they really do. I'll check 'em out. If I buy those, I'll *reallY* drive the guys I wheel with crazy. They already raise their eyebrows at my air springs and tubular Schmittybuilt rear bumper. ;-)

Could be, however I've hoisted my YJ at both ends, and did full droop, full diagonal X-articulation, etc. while hand-turning the driveshafts, to ensure no matter what configuration they were in, I had no binding.

However, I am now experiencing a little axle wrap when accelerating hard from a dead stop; springs going softer now maybe. I can see where the U-joint knuckle has dinged the pinion retaining nut (and felt the lumps). The Revolvers probably contribute to this, so now I am looking at installing a traction bar...