Oh great!
sheesh, why can't life be more simple... take old shocks off, put new
ones on :)

I did think to myself that i would be happy if the new shocks lasted
half as long as the old ones (which are at least 145K miles old).

Alistair

On 3-Aug-06, at 5:32 AM, Brien Dews wrote:

keep an eye on them Alko's. I have a buddy who installed them and
within a year they were leaking.

On 8/3/06, Alistair Bell <albell@uvic.ca> wrote:
Last Thursday I replaced the front shocks on my '82 westy.  have had
the van for 13 years and hadn't replaced any of the shocks. I don' t
know if the previous owner had (i purchased van with 82 k miles on it).

I had been unhappy with the van's susceptibility to cross winds, and
with good tires, steering linkage check,  and a complete front ball
joint replacement last year, I thought new shocks were in order.
Doing the old bounce test on the van did not indicate I needed new
shocks, FWIW.

Tom Forhan's well described procedure was a great aid. The old shocks
came off very easily, the nuts and bolts in very good (surprising)
condition. The old shocks were Sachs original equipment and in hand,
moved in and out fairly good. Not as stiff as the new Alkos but by no
means completely worn out. However, one shock did have a wee bit of
free play.

The new ones were put on and next day we went on an extended weekend
trip involving logging roads and some quite rough logging roads :)

The shocks performed very well. Its hard to really quantify, but they
"absorb" well without feeling harsh at all. On normal roads there is
not much difference compared to the old shocks, but on logging roads
they absorbed washboard and potholes very well.

I haven't experienced severe crosswinds yet, but it seems that the
Alkos have improved control quite a bit.

I recommend them.

Alistair

'82 westy, diesel converted to gas in '94
http://www.members.shaw.ca/albell/

--
Brien K Dews CC-AWCI
www.busesbythebeach.com
84 Wolfsburg Westfalia
88 Vanagon 'Carrier'
89 Vanagon 'Bluestar'