Suspension refresh

Another task on the back burner, which had been noted twice on the MOT’s as an advisory that the front shocks would need replacing. And it just made sense to do a full suspension refresh if I was going to do it.

Planning on doing all the suspension in one go meant a rather large outlay in parts so I kept putting it off but with the MOT coming I decided now was the time. A lot of research material is available regarding lowing a VW T4 which also meant lots of reviews on different parts. The most highly recommended seem to be the Sachs hd shocks but I just couldn’t pull the trigger on how much they were going to cost. If the van had got this far on standard shocks then a good set of replacement shocks would do me fine. I went for a set of Meyle Shocks which were a great price and seemed to be of a good quality obviously time will tell with this.

And for spring’s which are going to be doing most of the work with a reasonably heavy conversion in the back I thought this was worth spending the money on so went with Vogtland Springs. Originally I had some cheap springs which were fine but as soon as I had started the conversion they started to become coil bound so were doing the job but obviously not as well as they could have been.

In the last 6 months the van had started getting a bit wallowy around corners and a bit bouncy over bumps so the refresh was well needed and didn’t realise how well needed till I started removing the old shocks.

There are plenty of lowering guides out there here is one from the Brick-Yard so I am not going to go into any detail apart from it certainly can be an easy at home DIY task depending on how rusty the bolts are. For me my van is really clean underneath and had no problems but its worth checking you can loosen all the bolts before taking on this task as you don’t wont to end up half way through and not being able to drive the van somewhere for help.

I started with the front shocks and cleaned the top hat before re fitting.

Then onto the rear.

With the old shocks off I could push them all the way in easily and they would take up to a minute to extend so they must have been pretty much useless. Driving the van was back to nice and tight turning corners and no bounce so I am super happy so far and will update if I have any feedback.