BAC Forum
General Boards => Technical Support => Topic started by: joecpayne on July 10, 2015, 05:42:57 PM
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Has anyone compared shocks for a 1998 Beaver patriot with 4 air bags? If so which did you determine worked the best?
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Hi Joe,
I can share my experience concerning shocks although I have the 8 air bag system. When I bought our coach 10 months ago it had 53000 miles on it. We drove it from Tucson Az to San Francisco and it made my wife and 2 cats sick because of the"porpoising" effect on certain hyways. After doing my homework, I chose the Koni FSD shocks and put them on. I took the same trip this spring and totally different experience. Now when I hit a dip the coach only goes down, up and level. The only thing I don't like is it takes about 5 to 10 miles to "warm" them up from the initial stiffness when you depart.
Regards Fred
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Fred,
Did you put all 8 on or just the 4 in the front? Mine is also porpoising at 80K and I just ordered 4 Konis. BTW, that's about the same mileage I got from the Bilsteins on the Contessa.
Steve
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Steve, Just put them on the front in case I was disappointed, the rear are next. Fred
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I have something called Road King on the front....supposed to be good shocks and seem to perform very well. The rears are the Koni's. Like Fred said, it takes awhile for them to warm up or whatever than they are fine.
Luckily, the PO put all these on shortly before I bought the coach....I think I have 10 total.
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As a sidebar, I have noticed that our air system is a little slow to recover and after several bumps in a row the air ride gets a little soft. I recall being told by someone (Gerald I think) about valves he put on the air bags that regulate the air flow better.
Could this be part of the problem with the shocks?
Our Patriot was real bad and I am thinking shocks and valves on the Marquis soon.
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Hi Keith,
I noticed the same thing on my coach and especially when the syspension was calling for air (green needle) I replaced my dessicant filter on my dryer. The filter was the original and saturated with water when I removed it. However I did not see any evidence of pollution of the dessicant into the system. Seemed to help with the recovery time once the governor called for the compressor to come on at 90 psi on its way to 120psi.
Regards, Fred
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Thanks everyone, most of the articles I have read recommend the Bilstein shocks over the Koni so wanted to hear from someone who had run both brands and since my coach only has 4 shocks I want to hear from others who only have 4 shocks also.
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Joe we drove a 97 Beaver Patriot for 167k miles and tried Konis at 120k miles. We did not like the ride and switched back to Bilstiens.
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I have 10 bilstein shocks off a 2004 Marquis with 38,000 miles on. I will ship them to anyone whom wants for the cost of the shipping. KONI's are a far superior ride on the 1991 Contessa and the 2004 Marquis that we owned and own.
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Thanks for the input
I had new Bilstein put on and found out the coach had REAR shocks all the way around.
The new shocks fixed my problems with control, bobbling up and down and swaying.
The front shocks are substantially stiffer than the rear shocks.
Have no idea why previous owner put the rear shocks all way around.