Shocking News - Shocks collapse after adjusting - Now what?

[MarcusPB]

So, I buy myself a lovely camper (Thanks go to IRVS - she's a cracker) and after riding around for a bit with the kids we decide that it's too harsh over some of the worse bumps.
On the really bad ones it feels like the shocks are bottoming out and someone just whacked us all in the arse.

No problem, thinks me, I'll get under and adjust those shocks, that'll sort it.
So I do. (Lucky I've got one of those shock adjuster spanner things in my bike tools - dead handy)
The shocks were as low as they'd go, and there are 3 notches on the adjusters so I put them at the top instead, thinking that it's so harsh at the mo it'll probably need to be that much higher.
Time for a test run. Out we go and all seems well at first. Definitely riding the bumps much better. The harsh thump has gone - yay!

So we head home quite chuffed (I'm not really very mechanically minded so it feels like a great victory for me.)
Coming through a village near to home and we see some quite nasty rough bits coming up. I slow down, thinking better safe than sorry, and when we hit these lumps there's an almighty cracking noise and a massive thump as the front drops alarmingly.

Pull over to have a look underneath, as it sounded like something broke, and there's fluid running out of one of the shocks and the other has the top collar up round the mounting nut! Flip!

Crawl home carefully and jack up to see the damage. This is what the shocks look like now....

I don't know where these shocks came from as they were on the camper when we got it. But I'd be wary of this kind of shock again. You can see where they've gone. The collar on one of the adjusters sheared off and on both the grommet(?) sticky out bit that the adjusters sat against have pushed into the main body of the shock letting the collars slide past. Blinking rubbish.

So, now what do I do?
I know I'm going to need new shocks, but am I going to have to spend a lot of cash to avoid things like this again.
Also, I'm not sure but I wonder if raising the shocks up actually caused, or compounded the problem. I'm guessing that they were too long for the amount the bus has been lowered and it may have put too much strain on the shocks instead of some of most of the weight being taken by the actual suspension.
Do I need to get the suspension adjusted so that I'm not trying to support the bus just on the shocks?
Help would be much appreciated.

So, here's a pic of what the suspension looks like without the shock on.
I think I need to measure between the two mounting points to find out what kind of length shock I need right? When it's just sitting on the suspension the gaps around 270mm
Also, a bit worried as it's very low without the shocks, probably only got about 40mm between the top of the tyre and the wheel arch. Will this cause issues?
And just to make things a bit more bloody awkward one of the ends from the shocks will not come off the mount.

The rubber bush and the central metal tube bit are stuck on. Not sure why they won't come off past the thread, as they're rotating freely, but stuck they are.
Any suggestions on how to get this off? I'm a bit wary as I don't want to bugger up the thread on the mount.

MarcusPB

 

[sparkywig]

The shocks shouldn't be supporting the weight of the bus, the torsion leaves support the weight of the bus.
The shock absorbers are only there to damp out the suspension movement.
How has the bus been lowered, has a beam adjuster bolt snapped so forcing the load onto the shocks and blowing them?

Or have you got a Red9 E-Z rider set-up fitted?

 

[MarcusPB]

Honestly I have no idea how she's been lowered. She's new to me and I'm new to this.
All the paperwork that came with her doesn't have anything about the suspension either.

Where would a beam adjuster bolt be?

I've been trying to find a way to figure out all this stuff myself but the interweb has let me down.
I can't find explanations and diagrams of how the original suspension is meant to work in the first place, let alone what has been changed. I'd love to learn, that's part of the reason I got into this in the first place.
Any recommendations for reading materials or sites etc would be great, along with any other advice.

 

[sparkywig]

If you have a look at the centre of the beam tubes and it looks similar to this, then you have beam adjusters fitted.

If it looks like this, then the adjuster bolt has snapped,

and you have a fair bit of work to do......

 

[MarcusPB]

Cheers for that. I'll climb under tomorrow and have a look.

 

[Graham L]

The coil overs loom like GSF / bug pack units normally fitted to buses with drop spindles on them but as sparky has said they are for damping purposes only and the bus should support itself.
Whereabouts are you as I'm sure someone close will gladly come and have a look for you and offer some guidance, if you are in the midlands area ill gladly come out and have a look.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Trikky2]

I think I can see what has happened here.
The bump stops on your beam have been sawn off. Now the suspension has nothing limiting its movement.
When you adjusted the spring holders on your coil overs upwards and drove over those bumps, the shock absorbers got compressed too far. The coils of the springs got fully compressed and the stress had nowhere to go other than the spring holder cups which, not being designed to act as bump stops, broke.
Its not the fault of the shock absorbers.
This is what can happen if the bump stops are removed.
Even vehicles fitted with ordinary non coil over shocks can suffer problems. In your case the shock broke but I have seen other vehicles where the shock mountings broke.

It looks like a previous owner has lowered the suspension too far and then tried to compensate by fitting coil overs to raise the front a bit.

 

[mi2itsdl]

You need to have a read of this thread http://forum.earlybay.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=45111
which Graham.L and others also have some very good info in regarding GAZ coilovers.

I will begetting rid of my SSP / T2D coilovers soon for a set of these, plus they have their own bumpstops I believe.

Good luck mate

 

[davechorlton]

Reading this thread and having recently replaced by balljoints makes me think I would like some bumpstops om my adjuster lowered front beam.
I have looked at the Red 9 bumpstops, which are £50 plus a tenner delivery. They seem to be a simple bar through the hole left by cut off bumpstops. Could anyone fabricate this cheaper? I'm sure there would be plenty of takers...

Dave

 

[MarcusPB]

Ok, thanks all of you for your replies. All very enlightening.

So got underneath this morning for a quick look and I do have adjustable front beams. The nuts and adjuster plates that sparkywig pointed out for me are still there and all intact.

I've also read through that post and had a look at a few other things about lowering, and I'm still a bit fuzzy on it but kinda getting the gist.

So, as it stands now, without the shocks on, just sitting on it's suspension, the gap between the shock mounts is 270mm and the gap between the top of the tyre and the inside of the arch is about 30-40mm.
From what I've been reading this is too low right? Or will shorter shocks be ok with this amount of travel?
Reading on VW Heritage, they say that you need 50mm travel up and down.

Do I need to adjust those front beams to raise her a bit? From what I've been reading I'm not sure how easy it would be for a novice (or safe for that matter) to do this.

If I need to adjust (and can myself) I'm guessing that I'll need to measure again after that to figure out what shocks I need.

Then there's this bump stop issue. It's sounds pretty important to me. Do I need to make sure that I've got some decent bump stops on it? Or is it something that the socks can have built in. (Looks like some of the Gaz ones have built in stops, but not sure)

Cheers all.

 

[MarcusPB]

Update and plee for advice.

I've tried to adjust my adjustable front beams. It doesn't seem to be working though.

From what I've read etc it should be simple right.

Jacked it up. undone the locking nut, loosened the adjuster thing using an allen key.
With it jacked up off the wheels it should then have dropped the wheels a bit lower, twisting the adjusters towards the top of the beam. Am I right here?
That's not what happened. Nothing happened. No movement at all. Tried bouncing the wheels a bit and tried levering the adjuster bolts (gently as there's not much to get hold of) Nothing.

It feels/looks like there should still be movement in the adjusters, so are the beams/leaves likely to be shot in some way?

What would be my best solution from here?
Should I get strong expensive coil overs that can hold the weight of the bus some?
Should I get short coil overs or shocks that I can adjust to fit with the bas at it's very low ride as it sits on the suspension now?
Should I get the beam sorted?

I just want to get back on the road, with a fairly comfy ride, not to worried about being super low, and for as little cash as poss.

Any advice more than welcome.

 

[sparkywig]

You don't need to loosen the allen bolt, that secures the collar inside the beam.
It's much easier to lower the suspension than raise it as you're using the weight of the bus to move the adjusters. It's more difficult to raise the suspension as the adjusters are usually extremely stiff and you'll need plenty of leverage to drop the wheels.

 

[dubdubz]

the issue is the collar in the tube is sticking and the trailing arms are probably fighting against each other...

the angle of the a arms on each tube if you looks at it from the side and the hub wasn't connected - you would see that they are different I believe this is some preload thing?

if you are really struggling - you may need to separate the bottom hub [not tie rod] nball joint. The best way to do this is undo the nut but not all the way and then hit the hub NOT the ball joint perpendicular with a lump hammer - on the - you are trying to briefly distort the tapered hole the balljoint fits into and it will pop out...by hitting the side adjacent to the hole...this is easy for me to say my old man showed me the trick years ago and has [touch wood] never failed yet!

Once released the arm will drop to the nut you left on, and you can then remove the nut and in a controlled manner drop the bottom arm.

This will help you as right now you are fighting a tight centre collar AND the preload on the arms.

Then I have seen people put small bottle jacks and timber at the top of the arch/seat bottom and jack the top arms down, you have to do it both sides.

The centre grub screw/allen bolt needs to remain in the lock nut on the outer bit of the adjuster needs taking off, of course you should end up with the allen bolt in the centre collar, with a serrated section welded to the beam and in your hand should be another outer serrated piece, a washer and a nyloc nut! [x 2 if you do the bottom adjuster too!]

When I did mine I had to take off 2mm from memory on the collar before it would rotate with force, I think most don't get removed so they are almost interference fit to start!

take pics and post back - make sure bus is on decent stands too, as you maybe hitting/levering etc...

8)

 

[dubdubz]

depending on if you intend tubbing and notching [I'll assume not] then I'd come up 2 or 3 notches on the adjusters [actually it's down on the notches but you know what I mean!]

then I'd look over on this thread

 

[69rhdpanel]

I've lower lots of beams over the years, for friends and my own.
If adjuster are fitted remove the nut on both adjusters but make sure the stud with the hex fitting in the top is fully screwed in, remove the outer toothed part of the adjuster.
To raise the height I use A car jack( the ones fount in the back of your car) between the top torsion arm and underside of the wheel arch, using a block of wood to spread the load. This allows fine adjustment.

Sound like the beam was on its lowest setting then you have turned the adjusters on the shocks, putting all the weight them. They are not designed to take the weight of a bus.

If you can get the beam to the height you want without the shocks fitted then measure between the mounts and and get shocks to match. But shock choice is another topic, best to get GAZ coil over shocks about £190 but well worth the money and ride quality. I've just got some to go with my dropped spindles.