Actually, the feature of lever shocks which I always found dubious was
their mechanical "dis-advantage", so to speak. On the long end of the
lever you have the weight of the car, and all the forces acting upon it.
On the short end you have this tiny little valve body. The forces on the
valve body as amplified by the long lever arm must be enormous.
Conversely, any action produced by the valve body (i.e. damping) is at an
enormous mechanical disadvantage vis-a-vis the rest of the car. In
comparison, the forces on the tube shock are operating "straight through"
the axis (or slightly deflected if it is not mounted absolutely
perpendicularly), with no leverage advantage either way. This probably
enables lower internal hydraulic pressures, which would explain why leaky
tube shocks are rare, but leaky lever shocks are normal. But it also
suggests that tube shocks, with longer travel and lower pressures, could
be designed to have more subtle, even non-linear, damping action.
All of the above is pure speculation, of course... <g>
>
>In a message dated 6/8/00 8:09:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, yd3@nvc.net
>writes:
>
><< I believe I have read somewhere that the there are several
> reasons most vehicles went to tube shocks.
>
> 1) cost:
>
> 2) response: To my mind, the lever shock would have more play
> between jounce and bounce because of the design and rocking
> factor. It would be similar to determining TDC in an engine. A
> piston could be TDC while the crank could be rotated a few
> degrees with showing any piston movement. Thus the lever has
> some "dead" spots between jounce and bounce.
>
> 3) heat: I would think the tube shock is less sentive to heat
> retension.
>
> 4) travel: I would think the tube shock's greater travel would
> produce more uniform results. >>
>
--
Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the red one with the silver bootlid.
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