I need some shocks! having some sticker shock!

H

Hitchhiker

Senior Member
I need some shocks for my 1931 Pickup....I've been looking, But I am starting to have some sticker shock. Why are they so expensive and hard to find? I have a hard time spending 15% of what I paid for the truck for some rebuilt shocks. But I don't want to alter the truck either for another style. Any help or advice would be great. Are the reproductions bad? they seem to have a lot of bad press. thanks Matt
 
I didn't have to "alter" my truck, but I put Ken Davis tube type shocks on it. Very affordable, and if I want to go back to originals (which I didn't have anyway) I could.
 
As far as I know, there are no good reproductions any more. Stay away from the oil-less types.
I prefer to stay with an original type shock.
 
Hitchhiker said:
I need some shocks for my 1931 Pickup....I've been looking, But I am starting to have some sticker shock. Why are they so expensive and hard to find? I have a hard time spending 15% of what I paid for the truck for some rebuilt shocks. But I don't want to alter the truck either for another style. Any help or advice would be great. Are the reproductions bad? they seem to have a lot of bad press. thanks Matt
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If you want to find out why the rebuilds are so expensive, get about 20 shock cores and try to rebuild them. You may get 3 out of the bunch or 4 if you are very lucky. The problem is that out of the 4 you will have 3 rights and 1 left or vice versa. Takes a lot of shocks to get a good set out of old cores.
 
My advice is to find an orignal pair on ebay or flea market and have them rebuilt by one of the experts here on the barn. Look for a full set where shafts are perpendicular to the body(no tilt) and have a consistant gap between shaft and body. Always a bit of risk when buying used.
 
James is correct regarding the costs of the shocks. It takes a LOT of cores to get a set of shocks with good 'insides'. I am of the opinion that you cannot interchange the inside components from one shock to another, and if you put them in the barbeques grill to loosen them up, you melt some small lead components.

I love to make tools and fixtures for restorations, but my hat is off to those that can rebuild a good Model A shock absorber. I have not been able to master that procedure.
 
RockHillWill said:
James is correct regarding the costs of the shocks. It takes a LOT of cores to get a set of shocks with good 'insides'. I am of the opinion that you cannot interchange the inside components from one shock to another, and if you put them in the barbeques grill to loosen them up, you melt some small lead components.

I love to make tools and fixtures for restorations, but my hat is off to those that can rebuild a good Model A shock absorber. I have not been able to master that procedure.
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The small lead part is a seal in the corner of the stator fence, and is replaced when rebuilt using a kit.

I'm going through the process of rebuilding shocks from a pile of parts now. I have about 20 of each side, and so far I have only found 1 piece that is not rebuildable, and that is because the square part of where the arm bolts on, had been cut off. The rest can be welded and turned to restore size. It takes a while and is a fiddly job, but this is what I enjoy doing.
What I've discovered so far is that the body, lock ring and adjusting needle are about the only parts that are not sided. The rotor, the stator, the centre nut cap and the external cap are sided. The caps can swap, except that they are marked AC or CW and would only confuse things when going to fit them to a car. Some pieces don't need anything except a clean, some need minor welding, and some need major amounts of welding, but they can be rebuilt.
This site, http://web.archive.org/web/20090830155839/http://geocities.com/MotorCity/Garage/1205/hreb.html gave me some ideas on jigs etc. as well as photos etc and advice.
 
Hey there Dave. That is great information. Unfortunately, when I was in possession of over 200 shock bodies, I could not get all that figured out before I scrapped the bad ones, traded some and sold some. Thanks for the reply.
 
RockHillWill said:
Hey there Dave. That is great information. Unfortunately, when I was in possession of over 200 shock bodies, I could not get all that figured out before I scrapped the bad ones, traded some and sold some. Thanks for the reply.
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I was lucky in that I have two AC and two CW shocks unmolested and almost perfect internally to use as references.
 
I used to rebuild shocks but gave up when I could only find about 1 in 10 rebuildable these days. It sounds fairly easy to talk of building up wear surfaces and machining down......until you figure out that are a dozen or so wear surfaces. Unless you own good lathe and mill and have better-than-novice experience, it will make the cost of new repoductions pale to the machine shop cost.
I hear that Stipe's are great but not available right now. The rest, I would not recommend unless you are just trying to not be "shockless". My experiences was that all others do not come close on original shock action...if they ahve any at all!

All of this is applicable to the Houdaille-type shocks and not tubular. I have no experience with those.

IMHO
 
If I were you, I would contact Robert Paul in Yoder, CO. I believe he still rebuilds original shocks for about $55 each. He did 3 correct sets for me. He also has cores he can sell for about $20 each. Not a bad price for cores or rebuilding them, and way less than good new ones if you can find any. If you want his phone number, send me a PM.
Rusty Nelson
 
I have a set of Bill Stipe shocks on my '31 roadster. Wow! What a difference a "good" set of shocks make.:) Yes, they are expensive,
but if you want the best, you have to pay for it.;)

Years ago I had Robert Paul rebuild a couple of originals for me: no
complaints. A friend had John Holland rebuild a set of four for him.
A couple of them started to leak after a while. Mr. Holland fixed them up at no cost.:cool:

Bob-A:D
 
I have read all replys. question ? does all this info apply to 33-34 shocks ? I never have took a good look at model A shocks are they similar in design ?? Also for you V-8 guys . I have a (new to me ) 34 4 door with no shocks on rear . I am hopeing that a good pair of rear shocks will improve the handeling of the 34.
thanks for any input. To all have a very A to V-8 Christmas and a super new year
 
Hitchhiker said:
I need some shocks for my 1931 Pickup....I've been looking, But I am starting to have some sticker shock. Why are they so expensive and hard to find? I have a hard time spending 15% of what I paid for the truck for some rebuilt shocks. But I don't want to alter the truck either for another style. Any help or advice would be great. Are the reproductions bad? they seem to have a lot of bad press. thanks Matt
Click to expand...

These shocks have always been expensive. The Ford price list of 1931 has them listed for $3.00 each. Half a days wages for most Ford employees @ $6.00 per day.
The repairable shocks I believe are only about 10% of the available stock of original shocks.
Some one on here will know.

Chet
 
I recently heard that Robert Paul has passed away. Has anyone else heard about Robert, whether he has passed or I got the wrong information?
Rusty Nelson
 
We have used Robert Paul mentioned above for several sets. We also have Bill Stipes new shocks on the Roadster Pickup, they are spendy but work very well.
 
I talked to Robert Paul a couple of weeks ago after I sent him some to be rebuilt.

I had to send him 12 to get four to rebuild. The first four I bought off of someone on the Barn only to find out that they were reproductions. He said they were originals. I bought four more used ones without knowing what to look for in wear. None were rebuildable, but the guy who sold them to me let me come and pick out four more, all of which Mr. Paul said were rebuildable.

I currently have reproductions on my car. I have no idea who made them, but they have Ford script and Chicago, IL on them. Given what I have heard and read here, it seemed like going with rebuilt originals was the way to go.
 
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