Which Rear Shocks?

[redrover]

If I could (and I might) do it again, I would stick with all rubber bushing.
My, albeit limited experience with the suspension on these things is to be very careful with changes too far removed from what the factory had...ride seems to be the first thing to deteriorate...often badly.

That seems like very sage advice to me. Hotchkiss drives might be ripe for home fettling, but P6 is - in every respect - a whole other ball game.

I read in my internet travels that a chap once scientifically tested a whole bunch of aftermarket adjustable shocks and almost universally found huge undesirable inconsistencies in the way they adjusted up as to obviate any so called advantage of "adjustability"

I distantly recall something like this myself. In any case, there's something fundamental in me that's wary of the things. Obviously, we can't take one man's internet experiment as gospel without seeing his methods and how extensively he tested across makes/types etc, but I'm coming round to the fact that my current oil filled ones have lasted fine and are predictable, even with a thick coat of rust on them. So I may go down that route for peace of mind. I'll still be able to sleep at night knowing I've sacrificing the potential of a minor percentage increase in performance in favour of a known entity.
If I had oodles of cash and it wasn't the daily car, I'd experiment. But I don't, and it is, so I won't!

It would be interesting to see PC do one of the really thorough tests they used to do about 5 years ago on adjustable and gas filled dampers. Something with actual measurable results in a controlled environment, and not just a set of sponsored konis clapped up the underside of a Volga, with professions of 'transformation' scattering the page. But then a truly scientific test would probably cause a commercial/editorial clash... Shame, but understandable.

 

[John]

Spax coil over adjustables have managed to wreck a shock absorber rubber, hence the knock from my NSR corner. I am doubting the veracity of the description "Rover P6 3500 rear shock absorbers", from when I bought them. They appear a little bit long compared to standard, but the $astards are virtually uncompressible to get an accurate measurement.
Spare standard pair going on before the Spax ones fubar all the back bushes.


John.