Remember those KYB's you handed down? I hope you didn't want them back... Cause I think I killed the rear ones yesterday!!

I was heading north from the 91 to the 110, the road has a small overpass and on the other end, apparently, is a serious dip... well, I hit this dip (not a stupid person, a piece of road the opposite of a speed bump) at about 60 MPH... when down, went up, and bounced for the next 1/4 mile!!! The rear would not settle down... After that, the back end just felt soft...

I shall find out tomorrow when I swap in my new Bilsteins... ordered them from Tire Rack last week, got the Z51 versions. Should be a major difference!

oh cr@p

Hopefully it's just the shock

Think about it, Brian... you know suspensions as well as anyone... if not better...

The shock controls compression and rebound. The slows the spring down.

If the spring or any number of links or rods failed, then there would have been a catastrophic failure. It would have gone down but not back up!

From what I can figure, compression on the shock is shit, and rebound is actually ok.

I know, but worth checking

You are checking the rest?

of course I will, as a factor of being in there... but logically, the problem is shock related.

There is very little compression control. Rebound is still there, but compression is about gone.

Tell me another part on the suspension that would cause it to compress fast and rise slow?

your concentrating on WHAT

I saying look at WHY

if it's old and died, then it's probably just the shock

if it died because of the road condition, then something else besides the shock could have been damaged.

I've seen uprights crack!

They why is self evident, Brian... I hit a serious dip at speed.

Shocks blow... and that's what happened here.

Everytime I do maintenance on my car, I do a safety check... so when I do a brake job, I check the steering and suspension... same with shocks... check the parts that can break and be worn. Replace the clutch, check the ujoints... it all makes sense, eh?

On the upside, nothing went POP! or BANG! when I compressed into the bottom of the dip...

remember last year, when the spring bushing gave out? I ended up replacing not only the spring and it's mounts, but I got new bolts from MidAmerica and bushings from Energy. The old bolts were from Ecklers and I felt so unsure about Ecklers product after their POS bushing failed, that I didn't want to risk their bolt coming undone... as an aside, the MAD bolt is a much nicer looking part.

So did you check it then?

Saturday... no clunking, no immediate worries...

Hmm. I drove my corvette for 2 days with no front shocks and it did better than some cars I've driven with shocks. My 85 toyota pickup had no shock on the left rear for 6 months and it was tolerable. It must be worse for softer spring rattes.

But think of the weight savings potential...

Composite springs actually have a damping effect

build an electric car in college with composite springs w/o shocks, worked great!

Lighter weight, less need for a shock...

My 2nd car, a 1981 Toyota Celica had struts up front. They had gotten SO bad, it was causing the radio DJ to stutter... The entire dash board was shaking like a mofo.

So yes, I replaced them pigs...

Light weight yes

UPDATE:

Installed new Bilstiens on Monday. Much better.

And no sign of damage to the rear uprights. I didn't expect damage... It was a dip, not a sudden drop...

Final thought... the old KYBs had to be about done. They sat on Brads shelf for a while, and had some miles on them. They were an improvement over the leaking Koni's I had on there, no doubt.

The Koni's were adjustable, and were leaking out of the adjustment screw. It's normal for a touch to film the shock shaft, but not this!

However, what the Bilstiens do is stop the bounce... I think some of my vibrations were being caused by the shocks not absorbing the little ripples and such on the freeways around here. The ride is much improved.