grease in shock absorber

Post by **XDB** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:46 pm

A couple of days ago I took my minor for an MOT, the tester who was very friendly asked me if I had replaced the oil in the shockers with grease. I was puzzled as I had never heard of this before. I had topped them up with an oil recommended by Morris oils, which is motorcycle fork oil. By the way my mate reckons and expert is someone who has done the job more than once before.

Post by **Kevin** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:53 pm

Well I would have thought that would have altered the damping action quite a bit.

Post by **bmcecosse** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:53 pm

Grease wouldn't work - it has to flow. I have used EP90 in the past - worked well in my rally Minor - but in my Traveller now I use 20W50 and that's fine. You can 'fine tune' the dampers by adding any viscosity you choose. Higher viscosity = firmer damping. Some say it makes the damper leak - mine don't. It pays to change the oil from time to time - the old oil gets 'shredded' and turns thin and very smelly as the long chain molecules are torn apart by the constant squirting through tiny holes

Post by **les** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 10:22 pm

I thought that stiffening the damping by using thicker oil put more strain on the damper to bulkhead bolts.

Post by **minor_hickup** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 10:13 pm

As does bolting uprated shocks to them! Neither is ideal.

Post by **MoggyTech** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 10:18 pm

minor_hickup wrote:As does bolting uprated shocks to them! Neither is ideal.

Only slightly if you remove the original damper valves the forces stay about the same. The most common kit has one bracket attached to the original damper bolts, and the other bracket to the inner wing, this relieves some of the load.

Post by **bmcecosse** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:01 pm

Just make sure the bolts are tight - they will be fine.

Post by **rayofleamington** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:13 pm

As does bolting uprated shocks to them! Neither is ideal.

tele-damper between bottom arm and inner wing REDUCES the load on the old cantilever damper and its mountings.

Post by **bmcecosse** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 1:48 pm

Absolutely -I would never contemplate the idea of bolting a plate to the original suspension mounts. What's worse is - that must move the damper forwards (by the thickness of the bracket) - thus reducing the KPI and castor - and reducing the natural self-centre of the steering.