Mike,
I cannot claim to be an expert on this one, but I have done some "list
-research" - in otherwords, I've asked others for their advice, and I have
a pretty comprehensive number of feedback messages.
Option 1: beef up your existing shocks (with someone else doing it). Send
them to some of the vendors who can do a rebuild (like White Post, but
there are others - see Hemmings for more info) and have them upgrade the
valves and springs.
Option 2: Or, you do it. If you don't mind the risk of a leak and the
opportunity of doing option 1 after all, you can try "tweaking" you
Armstrongs by draining them (takes 2 days ... I know), and replacing the
oil with heavier weight oil - you can go from 20 to 50 SAE at your local
Harley store (front fork damper oil) - I went for 50 weight (although mine
wasn't Harley, but if I'd known about that source, it would have been).
Also, you can adjust the spring tension on the valve that hides behind the
big bolt located at the lower quadrant. I haven't tried it, but when I get
time, I will: the Listquest archives have more on the procedure. If you
can't access the archives, let me know and I'll dig out the article during
the week and send it on.
Option 3: Go telescopic. This is a popular conversion. Someone on the
list did a really lengthy comparison on the advantages/disadvantages of
lever v's telescopics on the list. The final conclusion was that
telescopics gave better all round performance. Wasn't there, so I can't
confirm the findings, but I'm not surprised.
If you do this route, there are 2 ways of hanging the telescopic shocks:
alternate 1: use very substantial brackets that fix to the current shock
mounting points and are then formed to give a vertical mounting for the
shock in the space between the inner fender and the wheel. It seems that
BPNW and a couple of other vendors provide this solution. This solution
does seem to limit the tyre width used: 215x15 seems be the limit on that one.
alternate 2: use the Rimmers and Moss system that requires a multi-piece
shock tower to be constructed, and mounted on the inner fender, either
welded or pop-rivetted in place. As a owner of a car that had such a
system in place, I can tell you that this is NOT an option you would ever
want to pursue. Remember that the inner fender is not a stressed (locally
supported) component of the suspension system (the TR6 has a frame-based
suspension system), and then you will see that all the damping forces are
being transmitted to the body aft of the B-post. I have a car with awful
distortion (rips in the metal in a number of places) of the inner fender as
a result of such an installation (plus the mess made by, presumably the
same DPO, when the shocks were removed).
Finally: You can tell from the above that your options are really an
Armstrong upgrade, or a chassis based mounting system for telescopics.
The irrating thing is that you can't buy the chassis brackets by
themselves, although they were designed by a TR enthusiast; The vendors
tend towards tying you to their package of brackets and shocks - and
they're not a good mix for my needs.
For all sorts of reasons, I want to be able to select the shocks I use, so
I haven't gone that route just yet. But, I might if I can find someone who
is a real telescopic shock nut (I've got all the bracket dimension and
construction info, and spring rate info already). And if I get that info,
it'll be on the list.
Cheers
Tony
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The rear end seems a bit loose on rough roads. I am still using the
stock shock absorber. Any ideas on beefing up the old rear end. has any
one used the Spax conversion kit and is this the best on the market?
mike - meburg@blueridge.net
74 TR6
Rutherfordton N.C.
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