Landy advice this

I have a series landy (oh there it is <--), it has huge leaf springs and normally the ride is well rough would be putting it kindy

last week I broke both front dampers, actully snapped the eye's off the ends! forgot to replace the bumpstops so they took all the impact, oops.

Funny thing is, the ride now is fantastic! it just glides over the bumps and feels more like my bluebird. I think due to the naturally high damping the leaf springs have normally, the suspension has now all the damping it really needs. New dampers are only £8 each but tbh I prefer it this way would leaving the dampers off be illegal or invalidate my insurance? what about drilling a small hole in them and letting all the oil out, naughty I know or replace them with moped dampers not sure?

[Edited on 27/6/12 by Mr Whippy]

The dampers are mostly there to improve grip under braking, and for rapid direction changes/acceleration, neither of which are likely in a Series landrover! They affect the speed of weight transfer. Soft or no dampers make this happen more slowly which means you get less disturbance from bumps, and the car is easier to control in a slide. If you only drive on roads with soft sweeping bends and don't brake hard, you may not notice much difference. If you try driving quickly through some Z bends you'll find out that you're still rolling for the left hander you just left as you reach the apex of the right hand bend, and this can best be described as uncomfortable!
There are lots of other effects too, but I think thats the main effect.
I'm not sure, buit I'm pretty sure you'd fail an MOT, and the insurance man won't be happy.
Regards
Hugh

ETA: Disclaimer: this is all from memory/how I think of it and may be complete baloney

[Edited on 27/6/12 by hughpinder]

Could the old dampers have been partly seized or damaged in some way which then caused them to break? That wouldn't have helped the ride comfort either.

The dampers transmit shock so aren't great for ride comfort but help reduce suspension travel by reducing the springs oscillation after being deflected by a bump. If you pass over a few bumps at a speed that matches the suspension resonant frequency I would think that it could get lively in the land rover without dampers especially on the essentially unpadded seats. Without bump and rebound stops I guess that there wil be some loud clangs and frighteningly high shock loads on safety critical parts. £8 dampers sound suspiciously cheap.

In what condition are the dampers in your Bluebird? They haven't made those for a few years.

[Edited on 27/6/12 by Paul_C]

No, all suspension components need to be in place for the MOT AFAIK.

You just had some rubbish dampers on there Whippy. Like on so many cars and bikes they are made to a price and they usually have much too much low speed damping. You could probably get away without dampers till you hit a big, unexpected bump. And then it'd probably end in tears...

Instant MOT failure!!

Get some adjustable dampers and keep them on lowest setting.

Apart from anything else a the dampers help reduce the possibility of axle tramp under braking, axle tramp on a beam front axle is quite nasty.

thanks

good replys, like the idea of adjustable ones that I could turn right down. May seem strange to not want dampers but there is a huge amount of damping anyway from the rusty old leaf springs, it's not like a coil sprung car

£8 is a normal price for landy dampers, £11 will get you heavy duty ones cheapest classic car in the world to own

Get some parabolic leaf springs on it, almost makes it feel like it is on coils. When we used to race our series 2 we had a couple of leafs removed and was running on Monroe gas shocks.