Platinum Shock Rebuild question!

[skipper]

Hi all, I'm new round here, having recently acquired an old unrestored Turbo Mid SE. Now, with hindsight, I realise I probably should have avoided the SE as a) my first Optima Mid and b) my first vintage Kyosho resto/rebuild, mainly due to the ball diffs and platinum shocks. In at the deep end as they say...

Anyway, I'm part way through the tear down and thought I'd take a closer look at the shocks. There's very little if any wear to the shock tops, so they don't appear to have had a hard life, but I did notice that the rear shocks seemed particularly firm when you pushed the rear of the buggy down. Same applied when compressing them off the buggy.
I thought it may have been shock oil too heavy, but when cycling again after removing the springs, they were very smooth, free moving. I drained the oil (which was clean and didn't seem very thick) and cycled the shaft again a few times - very smooth and no notchiness, or impeded movement.

So, springs... Are they all very stiff/firm? Is this standard for the Platinum rears? The fronts seem much lighter when compressed. I believe there are three spring rates, possibly gold, silver & black? Though not sure which is which? And to make it more confusing, the rear springs are more dark grey than silver or black! I guess I'd just like to hear from people with these shocks to gauge whether this is normal, to avoid me searching for solutions to an issue that can't (easily) be resolved.

Thanks

[radioactivity]

skipper

This should show the 3 spring types as well as oil, valve and spring differences.
Also Kyosho recommendations for different cars.
Also... https://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=18053

Chuck

[skipper]

Thanks Chuck, I'll have a gander at that.