I hope someone can help me out. My current setup is this:

Calmini SAS Spring Pack
Stock Shackles
Bilstein 5150's (BF5-A196-H1 stiffer valving)

This has been fine for about a month now. This past weekend I loaded up my X with 5 adults, a large dog, and about 100lbs in the cargo area. This has been the most weight the X has seen with the new setup. Well going down the road it felt like I was riding on the bump stops. I got out and here is what I saw.



The strange thing was once everyone got out of the truck the suspension stayed that low. I had to lift up the rear bumper by hand and then it went back to normal height. I only had this new pack on for little over a month. Should the pack flatten out this much so soon?

What should I do to beef up the rear suspension? Should I add some leafs from my stock pack or longer shackles? If so which leafs would be better to use (shorter or longer leafs?). I still have my stock spring pack which has the Calmini AAL's in my basement.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Do you have a solid axle....?

Those packs are supposed to be used with longer shackles.

I had the Calmini packs and went with Alcans. But it is because the Calminis are not built to take the weight of Bumpers, 35" tire and gas cans oh plus tools and such.

If you are planning on carrying that much weight all the time, you might need to have a heavier spring pack made.

My spring packs sagged out quite a bit too. Since I didn't have the $ for a new set of Alcans, I scrounged up some stock leafs (two leafs per side), got some new u-bolts and centerpins and added them into the Calmini pack. Seems to be working good for now w/ the loads of the bumpers, fuel cans, gear, etc.

No I do not have a soild axel. From the picture even with longer shackles it looks like it wouldn't make a difference. I don't plan to have that much weight all the time. I might take apart my stock pack and add a few leafs into the Calmini pack.

So at this point my question is....

If I remove leafs from my stock pack which has AAL's in it already to donate to the Calmini pack, which leafs would be best to use? Shorter or longer leafs? Thanks

I would use the longer leafs. Then thread them in to the pack by length.

When you add the stock leafs, you may have to grind off spring holders/nubs from them -- . A four-inch grinder with a cut-off wheel works well for this. Make sure to retain the nylon pieces that go in the ends to keep the squeaking to a minimum.

On the Calmini packs, they have those spring retainers to keep the leafs from fanning (they're visible in your second pic). Keep those, but remove the bolt for clearance.

An easy way to assemble your new leaf spring jigsaw puzzle is to pick up a long piece of all-thread and some nuts and washers. Use this and a pair of c-clamps to assemble the pack. Once together, remove the all-thread, insert the center pin and cut off excess. Mitch had this idea when we assembled my pack and it made it so much easier.

Hit the pack with some black spray paint and you'll be good to go.

If you don't have a good local source for u-bolts and center pins, go to foothilloffroad.com. They have the stuff cheap and have been nice people to deal with.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the great tip!! I will try that out and I hope this will help solve my problem. Thanks again!

PS. What size Spring Center Pin did you use?

If I remember correctly, the size is 3/8". to be sure, you can call Calmini and they will confirm.

They come in different lengths; they have full length threading so if you get ones that are long, there's no worries in using them.

They were only a few bucks, so I ordered four just in case something got screwed up.

Before you do anything to the SAS springpacks, lose the OE shackles and throw on longer ones. I can guarantee you, they won't fold under like you show with the shorter, stock stuff.
Do it.

Seen this happen before due to bump stop placement and shocks even with the longer CALMINI shackles. If you're using the stock bump stops without the extension than the shackle can get inverted when stuffed since there is nothing stoping it..was desgined/test with there bump stop extensions in mind.

Can you post a picture of your shocks and bumpstops at ride height.

I have Calmini bump stop extensions installed. I was resting on the bump stops while these pictures were taken. The shackles did not invert but rather fold back until the leaf touched the shackle mount. I might also add some extented lenght shackles to see if the angle helps (Thanks DBAX) .

Trust Dbax on this. Try the longer shackles before you try anything else!