Rear Shocks

[petethefeet]

Just to pick your collective brains.
I have recently put -30 AVOs on the van and replaced the front shocks; as I came to do the rear springs, I took the rear shocks off and gave them the push/pull test to see if I could feel any air in them (crackle/pop sound/feel)
The rear shock could be compressed quite easily but were difficult to pull back out but there was none of the crackle sound/feel I have seen before with worn out shocks.

Have they had it??

GSF keep having the -33% off deals but do not do the home delivery on the better shocks and they are not in stock locally

[California Dreamin]

Most shock absorbers are effectively dual rated (have a different compression and rebound setting) it is fairly typical that they compress fairly easily but have a more 'restrained' rebound to prevent the 'oscillation effect' ..basically bouncing on the road surface.
Also I would note that oil filled shockers need to be 'upright' to function correctly...they shift oil through valves so depend on oil being in the correct location to function.
High mileage shockers that haven't leaked their oil through the main damper seal may appear to function correctly but their damping action may have weakened substantially when compared to a new unit.

Martin

[petethefeet]

Hi, thanks for the response.
I used the latest GSF discount to by a new set of bilsteins, they arrived today. In my quick check the new ones appear to have more compression damping. Will get them fitted at the weekend

[scimdiesel]

Well the Avo's have no gas pressure so when you push them in your feeling pure damping resistance and when you pull them out again pure damping resistance. If you try and compare by hand "gas pressured" vs "non gas pressured" even if the dampers have the same damping the gas pressured one will "feel" harder in compression because your pushing again the internal pressure. The fact is the bilsteins do have more compression residence than the AVO's, but less lowspeed rebound. I design Dampers for Spax, when we developed the dampers for Brickwerks, we needed to add some extra shims to increase the compression force significantly over what i'd usually expect... I have tried various set ups on my caravelle. I'm playing with the idea of some semi-active displacement sensitive adjustable damping, ,but never get the time to sort something out for my van!