Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Shock absorbers

Does anyone have advice on upgrading the shock absorbers on a 4/4. Mine is a 2003 car , I have seen positive comments about the AVO ones I am looking to get a comfortable road setup rather than go racing. Thanks in advance. Bill

I’ve just purchased a pair of Avo’s from New Elms for the rear of my 2005 Plus 4.

I put four new Avos on my +8, replacing 27yr old spax and they along with new tyes have totally transformed the car. So happy with the ride quality hardly ever bottoms out now.

Remember, not all AVOs are created equal.

You can buy them direct from the manufacturer, or via several outlets. However, they are different spec to the ones supplied by New Elms. AVO make them specially for New Elm and will not sell them, or supply them to others.

All bought from New Elms as cater for three different models of Morgan.

For comparison you could also give SSL a call, they do Morgan specific shockers

https://www.suspensionsupplies.co.uk/

William see this thread before you order anything. Damper Length

Thank you all for the advice It was very helpful. Bill

Hi Bill,

I would definitely recommend fitting Bilstein suspension wherever possible, Bilstein are highly experienced German suspension experts who supply to wide variety of car makers including Aston Martin and Porsche to name just two, and make no mistake the quality and durability testing automotive components must pass to be adopted by modern car manufacturers are extremely strict indeed.

I like to support small British companies where possible but when it comes to damping, the TuV accredited OEM suspension giant Bilstein gets my vote every time. I ran the latest spec Bilsteins on my TVR Chimaera with fantastic results and my 2013 Aston Martin V8 Vantage also benefited from Bilsteins damping. Earlier V8 Vantage models ran Multimatic dampers which are not well liked, however, once Aston Martin switched to Bilstein its widely accepted the handling and ride quality of the V8 Vantage was completely transformed.

For my Morgan I went to Dan White of SSL who had in the past worked with Bilstein to develop front and rear dampers for Morgans, I believe the front kits are still available but the rears are more tricky. However, I was lucky and Dan had one set of rears left on the shelf so I snapped them up, they have massive inbuilt bump stops and proper large diameter bushes made of suspension grade rubber that are far superior to the soft and short lived 'Cheesium' bushes that come with AVOs.

My advice would be to speak with Dan White at SSL who I'm sure has all the Bilstein numbers to get a set of rears made up at the UK Bilstein HQ, I would then fit his front end handling upgrade that comes with Bilstein dampers to give you Bilsteins all round.

Good advice to approach SSL

Interesting though is the SSL front RS kit I fitted in 2019, to match their dual rate rear coilovers, came with Spax gas adjustables.



It was Peter Ballard at SSL who persuaded me to use the full kit including these units, custom built to match, despite having previously fitted AVO adjustables, which worked to good advantage. Given the one size fits all nature of this kit to cover all trad Morgans, it makes sense to me to provide adjustable damping.

I did understand that non-adjustable Bilsteins were offered with early versions of the RS kit though.