Lever arm dampers, check the oil
Hi,
So now is proper winter I have taken old car off the road but just before that I decided to jack the thing up and change the oil in the old lever arm
dampers (dampers not shocks). The cars handling has been a bit mental especially over some bumpy roundabouts with the backend almost leaving the
ground which I put down to it being a crappy handling old car, however I discovered this was not the case. Note that since I got the car I have only
topped up the oil from the filler bolt, but not removed the top cover, as that was what was in the service manual.
As I was removing the damper I noticed that the arm was incredibly stiff to move, like I could barely move it at all. I then opened it up only to
smell that very distinctive pong of diff oil FFS! That's like treacle compared to 3 in 1 oil. These dampers are known to leak a bit of oil and so
some idiot thought using thick oil was the fix. I flushed out all dampers with WD40 and refilled with 10w fork oil.
OMG the car is totally transformed! it just floats along so nice it's amazing what a joy and all the bad handling is gone, it does lean a bit
more in corners but such an improvement. I'm kicking myself for not doing this 3 years ago...
So if you have an old car with this type of damper as they are used in many classics, it might be worth you doing the same, especially as the fork oil
cost just £5.30 from Halfords. Removing, cleaning and refilling all four took only about an hour.
Bye.
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