Bongo Fury

over the last 2-3 years the ride in the old bus had deteriorated to the point where it is now just plain nasty to drive. the best way I can describe it that it feels like a chavved up corsa riding around on £2.99 ebay coilovers set on "max hard"!!

the rear is as soft and fluffy as you would expect from (what I imagine) is 20 year/100k mile suspension but , to me , the front end feels absolutely dead. chevrons and speed humps are a piggin' nightmare. again I can but assume that all the components (other than drop links) are more or less original.

unable to stand it any more , it was packed off to our local (& trusted) garage and we sat back and awaited news. the proprietor agreed that something was amiss and admitted that the porpoise like pitching made him feel sick on a test drive but having gone through the grubby bits he came to the conclusion that the rear tyres were causing the issues. admittedly they are budgets (one khumo and one who-flung-dung special) compared to the pair of conti's on the front but they are all in good condition and correctly rated & inflated.

personally I feel that the o/s/f feels worse but the front is definitely "dead" with virtually no compliance. I will swap tyres front to rear (just to prove/dis-prove a point) but has anyone had a similar experience or suggest a possible cause before we start replacing components willy-nilly as the pre mot rear brakes overhaul and new front crossmember have beaten the living daylights out of our beer fund! there cant be anything too obviously wrong as after the above issues had been sorted another 12 months of road roaming was granted.

I would go for a set of shocks all round.

Hi,
I had a similar experience with the rear of my van not being a particularly good ride. I put this down to the weight of the side conversion & age of the springs & shocks. The van was very easy to bottom out at the back especially on speed bumps & was very wallowy . So I invested in a set of air rides for the rear at a cost of £99. they are the type that has a bladder fitting within the rear coil spring. Being adjustable I could alter the air pressure until I got the ride I wanted. They massively improved the ride, so much better handling & well worth it. So I concluded that the coil springs must have been showing their age as this fixed the issue. Plus can get the adjustment I need for towing.
I would defiantly say that the age of the vehicles inevitably means that the performance of the suspension components will be deteriorating. I'd go for a set of shocks all round as a good starting point.

Cheers

Is it rock hard and not moving or pitching and wallowing? Not quite sure from your description which it is. I'm assuming the garage has checked the obvious ones but if there is something amiss with the roll bar you will be pitching from side to side and making people feel sick as you describe. I doubt the bar itself will be snapped but a bracket could be, or a droplink (I know you mentioned these as changed). Have you got any knocking?

Worth bearing in mind though that 100k miles if it has had a pretty hard life will be more than enough to knock the life out of springs and shocks.

If your garage is so sure the tyres are causing the problem why not let them fit tyres as they suggested, I am sure that if it does not cure the problem they wont charge you ."You cant lose"

PS what tyre pressures are you using.

Good Luck

roosmith wrote:Is it rock hard and not moving or pitching and wallowing? Not quite sure from your description which it is. I'm assuming the garage has checked the obvious ones but if there is something amiss with the roll bar you will be pitching from side to side and making people feel sick as you describe. I doubt the bar itself will be snapped but a bracket could be, or a droplink (I know you mentioned these as changed). Have you got any knocking?

Worth bearing in mind though that 100k miles if it has had a pretty hard life will be more than enough to knock the life out of springs and shocks.

as far as the ride goes , the best way I can describe it is as if the front and rear are two different vehicles. on anything other than billiard table smooth roads (an impossibility here in cornwall.....the council would rather waste our taxes on unnecessary bus/cycle lanes and other half-arsed ideas!) it sort of porpoises front to rear with a bit of a side to side sway..difficult to describe...nasty to experience! aside from asking them to investigate the "issue" an mot was carried out at the same time , so as far as that went everything was deemed acceptable. if the whole lot had gone as saggy as granny's knickers I could understand it but the front end feels like the shocks are now made of 4x2's while the rear is rather soft as you would expect given age/mileage. at this point the obvious thing to do would be to chuck new socks on it but given a fairly tight budget at the moment where do you stop? no point in not doing the springs , top mounts , wishbone bushes , ball joints , arb mounts etc etc while it is all apart and that is really going to ramp costs up. my o/p was to see if , hopefully , anyone had had the same "symptom" at all to point a knowing finger at the culprit and save save throwing a bucket load of cash at it willy-nilly.

My rear end was bottoming out loads even with out caravan on back
I replaced the rear springs to the 25./. Stronger ones
Didn't make any difference (£150ish )
Still bottoming out and a pig to change

I then put some of those suspension air bags inside the rear springs (£100). WOW 20psi in them different vehicle really stable around corners
Never bottoms out even with caravan on back
Well worth the money

rear is soft but its the front that is causing the issues...if you go over a full with speed hump or even just a 1" drop kerb , the front feels like there is no compliance at all but the rear just soaks 'em up without fuss.

What tyre pressures are in the front tyres at the moment.?

teenmal wrote:What tyre pressures are in the front tyres at the moment.?

and any uneven tyre wear?

we have always run 32 front & 34 rear , no unusual/unexpected wear patterns or tyre damage.

any ideas......short of replacing everything?

Front shocks seam the obvious component to eliminate especially given your description of no give at the front over bumps.

Running tyres a couple lbs softer than me.

I have on a car experienced mid-price budget tyres affect steering badly after a few months despite good reviews.

When shocks fail they usually fail as in spongy rarely do they become rigid and for two fronts to become rigid is highly unlikely.
If I am understanding your description of the fault correctly this problem is affecting both fronts is that correct?
Did you swap the tyres around if yes did it make any difference?
Can you "bounce" the front by pushing down with all your weight on the front corner or rocking the van side to side and is the travel the same on both?
On level ground,measuring from the centre of the wheel to the edge of the front wing is the measuremnt the same on each side?
Could it be that the rear shocks are too soft making the fronts seem too hard?
From this distance I would still go for the shocks all round.
I would have thought you as a baker you could rustle up the dough.