Has anyone ever drilled a small hole in a gas shock to get the gas out and then MIG welded the hole closed? Where to drill? How should the shock be held while drilling? Thanks for any experience here!
+1 Why would one even consider something like that? That has to be one of the top ten dumbest ideas or questions ever brought up on the HAMB.
stop and think about it....somebody put the gas in there....it is likely that there is a port somewhere on the shock body with a plug in it. That being postulated, your intentions to violate the gas chamber will probably not have satisfactory results. The gas is not just sitting in there...might be under some pressure, which you intend to release violently perhaps... Find something else to do with your time. Exploding .22LR rounds on an anvil with your hammer comes to mind.... dj
I did some searching and it seems that non gas shocks are hard to find through normal sources. I tried Napa, Autozone and O'Reillys for shocks for my 71 truck. but if you feel that gas shocks are too stiff for your application buy the cheapest or least expensive ones that you can find as they should give a closer ride to something like the old Monroematic from the 70's. I sold a lot of shocks back in the 70's and on most cars or trucks the biggest complaint I had on shocks was from guys who bought shocks that were too heavy duty and stiff for their driving. Usually because someone convinced them that they needed the "heavy duty" shocks rather than standard duty shocks.
i think what the op is talking about is what some drag guys i know do to oil filled shocks. you drill a hole depress the cylinder once and run a screw in the hole to seal it. pretty much turns a regular shock into a 90/10 drag shock. not sure how anyone could do that to a gas shock, and welding the hole would probably blow it up.
Or shocks intended for the lightest vehicle you can find. The gas is in there mainly to stop cavitation of the working fluid. It does add a bit of spring action that non-gas dampers don't do, but it doesn't really affect the damping rate. Taking the gas out won't solve that problem. Gas shocks for a light vehicle probably will.
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