Rebuilding the houdaille shocks

[BRENT in 10-uh-C]

Originally Posted by Brentwood Bob

Brent, few cores are good enough to come all the way back. And the work involved to open each core up is problematic.
Luck is involved.

Man, I totally agree with you 110%. BTW, Luck is always a good thing to have on your side!!

[Oldbluoval]

At the end of my shock “career”…..or “shocking career”?!
I was just heating all shocks before attempting to open. A bucket of hot charcoal and putting the shocks in!
They would spew, hiss, and stink! Some took double cooking and quench with water.
And they were terrible dirty to work with thereafter
Some never came open even with 100# air wrench like removes lugs!

[rotorwrench]

Heating and cooling cycles will fracture a pretty tight corrosion bond but it has to be heated to a respectable temp and then quenched in water to rapidly break those bonds. It may take several hot/cool cycles to get them debonded but some may just be too far gone.

[Brentwood Bob]

Dry ice is too pricey, so I will try wet ice.

[alexiskai]

Getting ready to send Bob some cores. These came off an early '30 phaeton. The SC4 is most likely not original, both because it doesn't match the date of the car and because someone hacked a chunk out of the shaft to attach an arm going the other way.

[Oldbluoval]

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Just coming off a particular year has little to do with the actual stock. Shocks could have been replaced 10 times over. For example your sc4 has a later style cover.
You just never know! If you’re showing the car it makes a difference but functionality, no.
I’m a bit anal and do like for covers to match and approximate year of manufacture. But the adjusters and all that…nah.
To each his own

[DJ S]

Does Stipe still manufacture new shocks?

[Brentwood Bob]

Received and looked over the shocks alexiskai sent. These all have very good action as advertised. Lucky to get them. Will be reworked, and should fill out several matched sets.
When the weather drys out, and warms up I can rework them.
Original good parts are where it's at IMHO.

[rotorwrench]

The way I understand it was that machining technology of the time would get them close to a fit between stator housing and wing shaft rotor. They then lapped them for a close fit so each one was an individual set. Modern technology has gotten machining down to a knat's ars so folks like Stipe can machine them for a good close tolerance fit in the modern era. The parts may also interchange depending on their procedure but I don't know.

The use of the three different fluids was an attempt to find better overall function but things have changed a lot since then. The hydraulic fluids are a lot better and the use of microscopic polymer for temperature/viscosity management has also come a long way.

[Kurt in NJ]

At Hershey I found this shock , it is obvious that the ends of the wingshaft were polished to fit the housing, the fit is less than .0015 and there are no signs that there is metal to metal contact, i can fit a .0015 feeler gauge will fit on one side, but 2 .0015 (one on each side) won’t fit.
with the cover screwed tight there is only.001 end float, the shaft moves easily, no binding.
So i suspect the original clearance specifications are .001

Now i am making a copy of the service bulletins shock testing tool.
It will be interesting to test this shock and see how close it will match the test times at both room temperature and freezing, and the difference between the compression and rebound times. I plan on using Kubota multi viscosity hydraulic oill

[art ebeling]

Bob, Do you rebuild any other houdaille shocks? I need some 1936 shocks rebuilt. Art

[Brentwood Bob]

No, Art, just the 1928-31 Hydraulics on the model a's.

[Oldbluoval]

Andy Falandes on V8 shocks

[Synchro909]

I have a box of old shocks. Most of them are free which I take as a good sign and some even try to dampen movement somewhat. An even better sign?
I have had in the back of my mind, a plan to rebuild what I can from those so I am looking forward to the videos mentioned. Please let the forum know whenyou have done it/them.

[Brentwood Bob]

Will followup. Weather needs to cooperate. Third wettest year on record.

[Hitman]

What’s actually being done here to rebuild the shocks? Freeing them up, sealing the threads, and installing o-rings isn’t a rebuild in my mind. That’s similar to a rebuilt engine being considered rebuilt with new gaskets and a paint job. Nothing more.

Shocks are a constant wear item and have likely seen a tough life with minimal maintenance. If the car is moving, the shocks are. Part restoration and rebuilding requires new parts, which there are none here, or significant welding, machining, surfacing and other restoration methods.

I ask because I’m not seeing much rebuilding here, and at $1200 for a set, that’s significant. I’ve spent more time and cost restoring other parts that aren’t as big of a wear item as shocks.

[Brentwood Bob]

i think you answered your own question. Finding useable matching shocks to rework/ restore then opening them up to get at the internals isn't apparent as seen in the series of pictures. Try it yourself.
The price of the available replacements, or Apple rebuilds are in the same neighborhood.
There is a learning curve.

[Oldbluoval]

Hitman…
As posted before, I built shocks years ago and did well in excess of 100 sets.
You cannot feasibly re-machine old shocks because there are at least 13 wear surfaces. The time, therefore cost, would be prohibitive. Each would require a build up and machining turndown to get the tolerances correct. Finding rebuildable shocks is very difficult as previously noted.
My guess is BB is spending a lot of time opening shocks that are not rebuildable. So likely paying for “R&D” on his hunt for treasure.
To me, fair enough if he provides a great original shock. I’ve seen pics of the Stipe shocks and look terrific. But if I had a choice of original or new…I’d take originals. I have accumulated many perfect original and would not take what BB is asking for them.
But that is why Baskin-Robbins makes the 32 flavors. Just imho

[Hitman]

I agree the pictures in this thread do not capture all of the work that goes into restoring shocks. I've taken them apart and usually let others restore them or buy the new stocks on the market. The new shocks from the English guys look pretty cool. It's conflicting as I do prefer the originals and original look. Perhaps I simply misunderstood the price of cores, they're usually in the dollar pile around here due to the amount of work required to get them apart. I'll hold onto mine .

It's the 13 wear surfaces that is part of my point. If you can't restore the surfaces in a cost effective manner, and Ford specifies that you should mix shock parts, you have to seek out low mileage shocks for clean up and light restoration.

[alexiskai]

Originally Posted by Hitman

Perhaps I simply misunderstood the price of cores, they're usually in the dollar pile around here due to the amount of work required to get them apart.

The cores are cheap because there's no way to know whether the core is rebuildable until you disassemble it. So the rebuilder bears all the risk, which is why they don't pay much.

I could be wrong but my understanding is you can't swap parts between the different varieties of shocks, but you could combine parts from shocks from the same manufacturer and "run." Maybe not though.