New Shocks

TudooR31

TudooR31

Member
Inquired about new sealed shocks in an older thread & thought I'd ask anew.
Most of the new replacement shocks available are the sealed, non-adjustable type and I've read several comments here that they are not of acceptable quality. Just asking if anyone can share any specific issues they have had with the sealed shocks.
I've installed a new front spring, drag link, tie-rod, king pins and all connecting hardware and want to finish up replacing the missing shocks on my '31.
Hope you-all had a super Thanksgiving!
 
The 'new' sealed oilless shocks are junk.. I've wasted a lot money during my lifetime and those things were $700 of it.. Apple Hydraulics on Long Island does a nice job of sleeving and rebuilding originals but then the cost is near the price of those from Bill Stipe.. I have a little less than a 1000 miles on a set of Stipes and the car is completely different from the old shocks..
 
Here is a reply I made to the same inquiry mid last year. Since then I have now done 5000 miles on the Bill Stipe shocks and they are working fine.
"I fitted A Snyders "shock pack" about 3000 miles ago. The arms and dog-bone links were fine, but 2 of the M&S shock casings in this pack split along a deep groove cut into the outer threads . The cast iron was very thin in the bottom of this groove, which also had the internal thread adjacent to it - about .020 in some cases. It obviously gave way under the hydraulic pressure. It looked like the groove was for a packing, but there was none in any of them.
I had not altered the adjustment of the shocks when installing them. I also noticed other issues when I took the remaining two apart. They had lost oil, and had slack movement in them because of this . The oil is very heavy - about the same viscosity as Model A axle oil.
In all cases the O-ring in a groove in the shaft had been cut on original assembly and the cut-off bits of rubber were floating about inside. You can also see steel rag from the machining on the edge of the rotor, and some of this was broken off and loose in one shock.
Snyders were brilliant when I sent them the pics and explanation. I asked for Bill Stipe shocks to be sent (their "premium shock set") and they credited me the M&S shocks in full and sent the Stipe ones by air post - postage free! I did not ask for this - they offered.
Since I live in Auckland New Zealand this was quite a bonus.
The Stipe shocks are about twice the price, but they are beautifully made, 60/40 resistance like the originals (M&S are 50/50 bump/ rebound resistance due to a different construction), fully adjustable and replenishable with 30 weight synthetic hydraulic oil. The M&S ones have no oil in the "reservoir" which is a dummy, and they must be dismantled to top the oil up. Then re-sealing is hard to do on M&S . I brazed one body back together as a temporary fix and made it work again, but I believe it would soon lose oil again due to the stiff action caused by the valving and very thick oil, which must combine to cause very high instantaneous hydraulic pressures when large bumps are hit.
The M&S are adjustable too, but the lighter action the Stipe shocks are supplied with is not attainable on the M&S ones.
I have only done 100 miles on the Stipe ones, which I fitted last Friday, so can only comment the ride feels good and there may even be room for improvement when I decide what adjustments they need (if any).
The ride on the 50/50-action M&S shocks was OK too, until they burst or lost oil.
The shock arms and dogbones in the original pack were well made and work fine.
Stuart Jordan in NZ"
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06-07-2011, 01:16 AM #6 SAJ
Member



Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Posts: 30


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Re: Shock Replacement
Here are pics of my M&S broken shock which I forgot to attach to my quick reply
Attached Thumbnails
 
Thank you Stuart Jordan for the personal experience you providied.
It's pretty obvious in your case, the current sealed shocks are poorly designed & constructed. It's nice Snyder's treated you fairly. I've gotten good service from them also.
I'll have to weigh several options of finding a Stipe set or rebuildable cores and having those redone.
 
TudooR31. Bill Stipe posted about a year or so ago that he had sold his CNC machine to make his shocks and existing stock would be all there is. A great shame, but obviously not enough people were prepared or, maybe, able to pay for this type of quality. Just for fun I bought a box of 11 Houdaille shocks at a swap meet last week, to see how hard it is to make a few good ones from them. They cost me NZ$100.00 from another club member, but I bet when I am finished I will end up with really expensive shocks, if my time is costed in at a reasonable rate! I might even end up with no good shocks because they are all junk. But I will have enjoyed playing with them and learnt something new, which is also worth a great deal.
SAJ in New Zealand
 
My experience with sealed shocks was that of the 4, two came with no resistance, and one broke off at the shaft after 200 miles. I sent them back to M&S and got rebuilt originals, which also failed (leakage and loss of resistance) within a year. I sent those cores to Robert Paul. They took many months to come back, but they have been functioning fine for three years now.
 
If you need to know why I didn't like those shocks,, it was because there was no resistance in any of them and they leaked like sieves.. I have not taken them apart and probably won't.. Also, I made the mistake of getting them from Macs,, they don't take care of anything in my experience.. In the future I'll probably use properly sleeved/rebuilt originals..
 
Patrick L. said:
If you need to know why I didn't like those shocks,, it was because there was no resistance in any of them and they leaked like sieves.. I have not taken them apart and probably won't.. Also, I made the mistake of getting them from Macs,, they don't take care of anything in my experience.. In the future I'll probably use properly sleeved/rebuilt originals..
Click to expand...

Do they sleeve the chamber and remachine the wing shafts?
 
Do they sleeve the chamber and remachine the wing shafts?
end quote

They sleeve the chamber,, but,, I've never asked questions.. My thoughts were they installed the sleeves and just cut the wings to clean them up and for proper clearance..
 
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