Shock oil help

[dragnse7en]

Hello everyone

What shock oil weight came with the cadillac era gold pan car? I'm restoring one, but don't want to use exactly what came in the kit, but something close to it. I'm thinking it's somewhere between 30-40 wt, but I'm not certain. I've got the manual in pdf form, but it says nothing about what kind of oil the kit came with.

[RC104ever]

The kit came with a 20 weight oil. I think one of the manuals suggested going up to 30 but not over 40. I've run a 22.5 Silicone and 37.5 weight and the 37.5 was a bit too much, so I would imagine 30 should be good but it also depends on your springs. I'm still using the original gold 'stiff' springs, might try mixing them with the silver 'softer' springs and see how it goes.

[dragnse7en]

Wow - I'd think that the 20wt would be too light for those gold springs. I'm thinking of using AE's 35wt silicone shock oil.

Any AE shock bladders work with the old, external load gold shocks?

[Jay Dub]

Don't bother with the bladders. For racing they are not "The Ticket". keep the emulsion style setup. They may feel worse on the bench, but work better on the track. -Jeff

[dragnse7en]

I'll take your word on that for off-road, but for on-road even AE guys are buying up every TRF damper set that hits the shelves

[Charlie don't surf]

The TRF dampeners are great ( and expensive ) I will say if this caddy is a shelter, I would leave the fluid out before the oil leaks out onto you nice white arms-

[dragnse7en]

I really don't believe that will happen if the shocks are properly rebuilt. I had the same shocks in 1985 on my Tamiya Frog, and they never did that.

[Charlie don't surf]

Technically they shouldn't, but the rubber seals will sometimes bleed out due to humidity/temp/and barometric pressure changes then coating your nice parts in crap. Just a word of advice, as most here know how to build them but have had ruined parts over the years

[dragnse7en]

I'll keep an eye on them - thanks. If they do happen to do that over time, then I'll get a full set of TRF silicone o-rings to eliminate that problem.