Andy,
I am going to use 40W fork oil, as Jerry Causey suggested
for his B. There you can start and play with the different
viscosities. I was using in my BMW synthetic oil which
was a bit stiffer than the standard stuff, but I had to
adjust the spring tension, too. Otherwise you'll end up
after a bumpy ride on the low end of your dampers.
So you must also adjust the spring tension when going to
stiffer shocks. A future plan of mine is to take the third
leaf of the Midget springs (as Alan Costich suggested) and
bolt it to the set of springs I already have. The third is
the stiffening spring which does not necessarily increase too
much the height of the ride.
Be careful not to use too heavy oil. Or you'll eventually
damage your shocks.
There is a spring under the refill screw which presses a metal
pin onto a valve where the oil gets squeezed
through. This builds up a certain resistance for the oil flowing
through. What some people do is taking that screw and cutting a thread
in it so that one could screw a bolt through it that pressed more
(or less) on this spring which pressed the pin onto this oil
valve. So one can increase the stiffness of the damper.
On motorcycle forks one has as well the opportunity to increase
the spring tension by using a couple of thick washers.
Which is _not_ the same as in the lever shocks, but rather like
increasing the tension of the leaf springs.
Concerning the lever shocks this might be a safer way of increasing
the stiffness. But still you might risk a ride with higher pressures
which could lead to blowing gaskets/seals.
In any case notice my disclaimers to save my butt. A car without
shocks sure looks funny on the road!
Cheers,
Gus
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Agustin de la Calle '71 MG Midget (red)
Boston, MA delacall@bcmp.med.harvard.edu
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