Many thanks to all the listers that responded to my submission re
originality. Much food for thought. The general consensus seemed
to be that the original parts could, in the main, be made to work
adequately and that going any other route would have an adverse
effect on the value of the car.
So I started to look at the parts on the car that I felt could use
some improvement. First, off with the front shocks, Mine were
covered in oily mud and looked awful, the left one worse than the
right. After cleaning them off I discovered a cover plate at the back,
under which is a rocking beam arrangement and two plungers. All
looked in good shape except the oil, which was incredibly thick.
The book says 20w50, so I cleaned out the old stuff by removing
the damping valve and pumping the A-arm, and refilled with the
right oil after cutting a new gasket for the cover plate, and refitting it
with gasket cement. I had to pump the arm a lot to bleed out all
the air, but after a while the damping effect was very smooth and
even and with no apparent play when the A-arm reversed direction.
So I put them back on the car. A dramatic improvement in damper
performance, with much less road shock coming through the
steering wheel. I'm going to do the same thing with the rear shocks
this weekend.
They probably arn't as good as a well-engineered tube damper set
up, but I have doubts about my ability to create such a thing, and
what I have now works well enough for me, so now on to the next
thing, which is the brakes. I'll let you know how that comes out.
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