emptying/Refilling dampers

[little_pete]

I don't know if this is useful for people but I've had great advice off here in the past so feel I should share a solution I had to a problem. Perhaps it's already a known solution, but it had me stuck for a while:

I went to refill my dampers and on emptying very little came out despite violently bouncing the car, disconnecting the lever from the suspension and pulling by hand it's full travel (and replacing the bushes while I was there). I tried with the valve in and without, no change. I thought maybe there was no oil in so I tried to fill it up and none went in, airlock maybe? more boucing etc, nothing.

So I decided to get an old bike pump and just jam it in the filling hole using some oil as a seal. A couple of careful strokes on the pump and a satisfying mass off oil came out followed by more on every stroke. Please someone let me know if this would in any way damage the dampers before anyone else tries it? I put new oil in and repeated the air pump procedure a few times to run it through, before finally filling up normally when the oil got full I bounced the car and could fit a bit more in continued until bouncing just made it over flow. I'll check in a few days see if more oil can go in.

Now the car levels pretty quickly from a violent rocking and it's noticeably harder to rock. Looking forward to driving it with the new poly bushes and damper oil (SAE 30). (Not looking forward to doing the rears).

Please research if this will damage anything before trying on your car, but it works on mine

[bmcecosse]

No possible damage -well done, handy tip - you would be even better with SAE 40 (or even 50) oil. The rears are probably best done OFF the car - clamped in a vice.

[MarkyB]

Top tip!