Correct install of a Delco Lovejoy shock

Hi people, im going to be mounting my Delco Lovejoy shock absorbers into the front of my fenderless model A coupe, it has a spring behind axel setup.

My issue is, and yes i know they're ingle action, ive seen this shock mounted up both ways.

As the resistance is one way, in your opinion, should they be arranged to resist the bump or the rebound?

Suspension 101 will tell you the shock is designed to slow the rebound, i know, but if you think about a standard tube shock, they're much harder to compress than expand. Perhaps the reason for that is the weight of the car hitting a bump does the compressing, then the shock does its resistance to rebound job.

So if mounting the shock like in picture 2 you will get dampening on compression, none on expansion. Picture 3 will have freedom on compression and resistance on rebound.

Thoughts?

 

Mine (stock '36) were mounted as in your first set-up:

 

I have some very similar shocks on my modified. I must admit I didn't give it a lot of thought when I mounted them but I mounted them what appears to be as per the second pic. They seem to work OK. I'll be interested to see what the experts say. I might have to swap mine over.



Pete

 

I can't imagine any OEM hydraulic shock being valved for ALL jounce and NO rebound. Maybe not 50-50 but possibly 60 jounce-40 rebound-maybe even 70-30. You should mount them the way they were mounted on Buicks and I'm sure that was biased toward jounce.

 

I believe the earlier Delco Lovejoys were indeed single-acting, i.e. they damped in one direction only.

Apple Hydraulics will tell you most, if not all, you'd want to know.

 

By the way, how long are the levers on those units? I've had some ideas brewing, and whether they work or not will depend on the sort of range of lever length one gets. 10" or so?

 

Ned, i believe they're a bit more like 8" at an estimate.

Dale i guess Jounce is compression, hitting a bump etc. if talking numbers Im quote carcraft.com

On shocks101
"As the shock is pushed together, this is called bump or compression. As the shock expands, this is called rebound. When the vehicle encounters a bump and compresses a spring, energy is stored in the spring. As the spring expands against the weight of the sprung m*** of the vehicle, the shock absorber forces oil through various metered orifices in the shock valving to control this action."

on drag racing
"In the case of a 50/50 shock, the resistance is the same in both compression and rebound, while a 90/10 shock has nine times the resistance to compression than it does to rebound. The 90/10 is almost exclusively a front shock designed to extend (rebound) very easily and offer significant resistance to compression. This allows the front end of the car to rise very quickly and easily and then maintain that front-end rise throughout the entire run.

Read more: http://www.carcraft.com/techarticle...ce_shock_absorbers/viewall.html#ixzz2BV46Rp00

However im not building a drag car for a smooth 1/4 mile, its a road car with pot holes and all.

if i hit something on the road, my shock should allow my spring to compress the resist its ability to bounce me off course. Thats my take on it. anyone else like to chime in?