Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) SSL 5L Suspension on a Plus Four Super Sport

[/quote]If it was me, I'd be beating a path to Bilstein.[/quote]

A long time ago granted but I fitted Bilstein shocks to my 2 litre Cavalier and had one fail completely within a year!! The supplier was extremely reluctant to replace it as well. So they're not infallible, hopefully standards and their customer service has improved since then.

I bought my rear Bilsteins from Dan White at SSL, they were his last set on the shelf and date from the days he worked directly with the suspension engineers at Bilstein to create quality rear dampers specifically for Trad Morgans.

I have all the numbers, Bilstein are very good at retaining records so you just give them the numbers and they'll be able to pull up the exact valving and all the other spec, this makes servicing easy. Their customer service is excellent, however generally speaking Bilstein will not work with end users/the general public, they look to only work with resellers who are their customers, this reseller model is very common across many industries and exists for good reason.

Bilstein are a huge company operating globally and to very high standards, I want to support small British manufacturers such as AVO, Gaz, Protech and Nitron but the truth is they simply can't come close to a giant like Bilstein, one month's R&D budget at Bilstein will likely equal the entire annual turnover of the four cottage industry damper manufacturers I've listed above put together.

I'd definitely trust Bilstein and their army of very talented and highly qualified engineers to put suspension on any of my cars, and let's be honest here a Morgan is a very crude thing. I really dont think what's needed in the way of damping is going to stretch the skills of a Bilstein engineer, but what they will give you is a high quality simple telescopic damper that’s correctly valved and offers an excellent service life because that's what they have to do for car all those global car makers they also supply.

Just be sure to choose your reseller carefully and you'll have all the aftersales support you need, in my case I chose SSL who are currently soucing me a new bumptop from Bilsten, I'll update everyone on how this plays out, but I'm confident Dan will look after me just fine.

Can you post the numbers please.

I hope you will understand, and please don't think me unhelpful Keith, but I'm going to politely decline to reveal the numbers.

This in respect of Dan from SSL who has a small business selling these dampers, I hope you'll agree we also need to acknowledge it was Dan who invested time developing them with Bilstein, so it wouldn't be right to publish the numbers.

Dan is a super helpful guy and a true Morgan enthusiast, he is also an official Bilstein reseller so my advice would be to contact him and I'm sure he'll be happy to sell you a set. I doubt he’s adding a massive margin, and anyway whatever he's making on the Morgan Bilsteins is money we should all be very pleased to see Dan earn as the development work he completed with Bilstein was certainly a success, so it’s only right he should be rewarded for his skills and investment in time.

Of course when you purchase a set of these dampers as I did, they come with the numbers on them, so you'll have them for future servicing reference from that point forward. Also keep in mind my point about the Bilstein’s reseller only policy and how this works, even if you did contact Bilstein directly with the numbers they wouldn't sell you a set, if they did that they'd soon fall out with their resellers and for obvious reasons.

The reseller is part of an important relationship network for a manufacturer, because unlike end users a reseller is the source of constant repeat business, the manufacturer understandably wants to protect their repeat business relationships which is the precise reason why they will often adopt a reseller only policy.

I did some testing for Dan a few years ago using my previous Roadster and various pairs of Bilstein fronts (non adjustable) which were being compared for valving, this entailed a lot of miles on the same route with a tech in the passenger seat observing, back to base swop set...repeat

From personal experience, I would choose Bilstein and would be happy to order them via SSL

Do you know why SSL later switched from Bilstein's to Spax gas assisted adjustables for their front RS kit Jon?

I notice that there is some discussion on failed dampers, I've had 3 Avo dampers fail and everytime a replacement supplied almost immediately. The failure mode was always oil leaking from the seal or ride softness/hardness adjustment screw/valve. Richard would you mind writing some articles for our soon to be published MogFriends hand book please.

I think we'd need Dan to answer that one, but it's true, SSL did move away from Bilstein some time ago which is why they only had one last set of Bilsteins on the shelf when I contacted them last year. I also suspect the demand for our dampers is very small, this may mean the aftermarket Morgan market is not especially attractive for a company the size of Bilstein, small British manufacturers like Spax and AVO may have proved more flexible in their approach to working with another small company such as SSL?

Understandably, given the size of Bilstein their business model is more about working with car makers and supporting higher volume aftermarket opportunities, these car makers don't necessarily need to be high volume producers and I'm sure they would be happy to work with The Morgan Motor Company. However, the MMC seems to have had a buying policy that focused more on price than quality, this was certainly true when it came to suspension components. For example, their leaf springs were very poor and most Morgan owners seem to replace their dampers early on, so I suspect they were rather budget quality too.

Like Morgan, Caterham is a very low volume car maker, but they've always taken a different view to the procurement of parts, Caterhams are all about handling excellence so we tend to see them fitting quality suspension components.



Lotus takes the same approach, and unsurprisingly makes the same suspension supplier choices.