Squelchy Shocks!

[DerbyDan]

Hi,

I've just re-built & re-filled some AE shocks (hard anodised grey ones, if it makes a difference?) I did everything by the manual & seem to have roughly the right amount of re-bound (1/4") & the shocks so far (touch-wood) don't leak, but the front ones especially are really quite squelchy near the bottom of their travel..... is this normal? Or is there a method of stopping this?

I've only been building shock absorbers over the last ten years or so for my touring cars - maybe i'm just used to the advanced design of these later units

[call-911]

Are they that way when off of the car?

[DerbyDan]

Are they that way when off of the car?

Yes, the rest of the car hasn't been assembled yet....

[THEYTOOKMYTHUMB]

I assume by the way you describe it that it's not a metal sounding squeak which would lead me to believe that there is air in the shock. The squeak is the air/fluid mixture squeezing thru the holes together. You may try opening them up and bleeding the air again.

[soniccj5]

I ran into this problem with a set of RC-10GT shocks. The piston was going past the shock body into the shock cap.

My workaround was to cut a small piece of rubber hose to limit the travel.


ED

[DerbyDan]

Yes its definately air mixing with the oil.... when you take the cap off the shock the oil is all 'airrated'. Thing is i've been really carefull to make sure there are no bubbles in the oil when filling them by slowly moving the piston up and down a few times, then topping up etc... but each time I get the squelchy action. I must admit its not really bad... its just not that great!

I did wonder if the piston was grabbing air out of the shock cap as the fronts especially do get very near the top at full travel. The shocks are from my Worlds Car.... I don't have any reason to believe that they are not standard kit spec & I have threaded the ball joints on until all the thread on the end of the shaft is hidden.

Perhaps i'll try again & wind on the ball joints a bit more to limit the travel...

[aconsola]

They are not a bladder type shock, so air and oil will mix when the shocks are being used. As long as you bled them both evenly so they have the same rebound they will be fine. If it has the squelchy sound near the top of travel when they have not been used yet limiters might help, but usually the sound goes away after the oil and air are well mixed.

[DerbyDan]

They are not a bladder type shock, so air and oil will mix when the shocks are being used. As long as you bled them both evenly so they have the same rebound they will be fine. If it has the squelchy sound near the top of travel when they have not been used yet limiters might help, but usually the sound goes away after the oil and air are well mixed.

Cool - I wondered if that was the case, I couldn't quite see how the air & oil wouldn't mix without diaphrams in the top caps (has anyone done this by the way??) I shall leave them & see how they operate on the car

[jwscab]

you used to be able to buy a small bladder that fit over the main body, then you screwed down the cap. I have some on some shocks, I dunno which ones, they are all assembled. maybe parma or jg or someone made them. You can probably get them nowadays too, I dunno, never looked.