Shock Replacement
 

I am looking to upgrade my shocks on my Chinese buggies.

The rear I am going to go with the ones with oil canister and the front no canister. I know the front is pretty much set on a fixed length but on the back it appears you can add more length.

Should I use a longer shock in the back going from standard 13" to lets say 14 or 15"? Will it work properly and give more travel?

Also on the back frame where the swing arm attaches, there are two holes on a bracket, an upper and a lower. My buggies seem to use the upper. The other is about 2"or so lower. Is there a benefit to putting the swing arm on the lower one? Seems it would live the body up.

Charles

When you say the ones with the oil canister, do you mean those gold or blue ones on EBay? I think those are air shocks because you can con connect a air pump to the canister to increase or decrease the rebound. Or maybe they are oil filled and use air against a diapraghm to tune them. Anybody else use these shocks on a buggy? Are they durable or a waste of money. They do look cool.

I've read that Yamaha blaster front shocks are good to use on the 150cc buggies as rear shocks. Lots of used sets on eBay.

I mean the nitro filled shocks.

I just bought a 150cc in addition to my other two and the guy put Suzuki shocks on the front and boy can you feel the difference. Cushion is amazing. He left the back alone though and you can feel the jolts there still.

I am using the Blaster shocks on the rear of my HH and it vastly improves the ride. However, depending on the rear suspension style, you have to be very careful of the shock length. If they are too long, it will cause you major grief as I found out. The blaster shocks were longer then the HH's, but I forget the difference. I had driven many desert miles with no problems, but on the last trip, I ended up with a hole in the gas tank. The style of suspension to be careful with is the style in my picture. As you add longer shocks, the top link (black arrow) rotates. The bottom of the link will move in the direction of the blue arrow. If it has moved enough, and then you catch air in the rear, The link will rotate past the center point. This will cause the engine to flip up, and the cylinder head crashes into the bottom of the fuel tank, and in my case put a hole through it. I was able to fix the tank, but now I need to rig up some type of limiting strap to keep it from happening again.

I think my rear frame is a bit different, but the fuel tank in that spot on the rear rack does get in the way of mods. I installed a PVC plastic power conduit box to replace my fuse panel and I hit the tank with full compression of the suspension- had to move the box.

The blaster front shocks installed in the rear is on my to-do list. #1 on my list is to actually start doing the stuff on the to-do list!

The shock does not increase or decrease travel. The proper shock is built around the suspension travel. Depending on your buggy some use what we call dog bones for they resemble a dog bone on the rear trail arm. A longer shock, as much as 1" longer will cause the carburetor to hit the fuel tank on rebound thus disengaging the carb from the intake.

Sycarms, good point about the parts hitting the frame.