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Joss,
Reading of your UrQ project, you're likely well qualified to judge for yourself what you'd prefer, so why not leave the decision of any possible next damper if in fact required, till you've least ridden in a few forum member's different wagon examples; and also proven that you do need new ones. Like Dave says above, your's may still be "working fine...test...paint (the struts perhaps)...", but would add inspect and, is there a particular symptom you are seeking to correct? Is your entire suspension OEM and do you have its' service history?
Meanwhile, staying with your restoration and originality theme, if you haven"t already, may I humbly suggest as a most cost-effective first go-round and suspension starting point that you consider:
Two items on the front end:
- Front OEM A-arm bushes and strut top-mounts alone (i.e. un-aided) have a much shorter service life than dampers;
- If not having been just replaced very recently, these bushes and mounts will already be well enroute to early internal failure;
- In the case of these particular metalastic parts, the above will be even more true of non-dealer sourced items;
- As the above soft hinges are in a sense, both the knee and hip joints of the car, and the connective tissue for those same joints, any deficiency here will subtract markedly from your driving enjoyment, no matter what brand of suspension is mounted between them.
This therefore suggests you carry out the replacement of the six front main suspension attachment points bearing in mind the following:
a) Replace both the strut top-mounts and A-arm bushes with strictly dealer sourced Boges; and
b) Because the above is a fair bit of work and you may be interested in doing it less often, consider also:
c) Equipping these when new with nigh on invisible and easily removable "Stops" widgets I make (links below), which economically serve to preserve these joints near to new for quite some time.
Arm-Stops
Strut-Stops
This will ensure to provide the most suitable and durable stock strut retention for your current or any future dampers, and restore the responsive connectivity that the old soft attachment points will have lost.
Two items on the rear end:
- remove the short upper suspension arm and the associated hinge plate, that is bolted to the inner fender wall, and which also secures the top of the coil-over. Inspect for rust and do painting and rust-proofing here;
- inspect and likely replace at least the two inner pivot bushes on this upper arm as these are always the first to go off;
These two whole but limited procedures will also afford you the opportunity to more carefully have a good look around and clean and inspect all the rest of your current kit.
Cheers.
Reading of your UrQ project, you're likely well qualified to judge for yourself what you'd prefer, so why not leave the decision of any possible next damper if in fact required, till you've least ridden in a few forum member's different wagon examples; and also proven that you do need new ones. Like Dave says above, your's may still be "working fine...test...paint (the struts perhaps)...", but would add inspect and, is there a particular symptom you are seeking to correct? Is your entire suspension OEM and do you have its' service history?
Meanwhile, staying with your restoration and originality theme, if you haven"t already, may I humbly suggest as a most cost-effective first go-round and suspension starting point that you consider:
Two items on the front end:
- Front OEM A-arm bushes and strut top-mounts alone (i.e. un-aided) have a much shorter service life than dampers;
- If not having been just replaced very recently, these bushes and mounts will already be well enroute to early internal failure;
- In the case of these particular metalastic parts, the above will be even more true of non-dealer sourced items;
- As the above soft hinges are in a sense, both the knee and hip joints of the car, and the connective tissue for those same joints, any deficiency here will subtract markedly from your driving enjoyment, no matter what brand of suspension is mounted between them.
This therefore suggests you carry out the replacement of the six front main suspension attachment points bearing in mind the following:
a) Replace both the strut top-mounts and A-arm bushes with strictly dealer sourced Boges; and
b) Because the above is a fair bit of work and you may be interested in doing it less often, consider also:
c) Equipping these when new with nigh on invisible and easily removable "Stops" widgets I make (links below), which economically serve to preserve these joints near to new for quite some time.
Arm-Stops
Strut-Stops
This will ensure to provide the most suitable and durable stock strut retention for your current or any future dampers, and restore the responsive connectivity that the old soft attachment points will have lost.
Two items on the rear end:
- remove the short upper suspension arm and the associated hinge plate, that is bolted to the inner fender wall, and which also secures the top of the coil-over. Inspect for rust and do painting and rust-proofing here;
- inspect and likely replace at least the two inner pivot bushes on this upper arm as these are always the first to go off;
These two whole but limited procedures will also afford you the opportunity to more carefully have a good look around and clean and inspect all the rest of your current kit.
Cheers.
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