Matt details the differences between Front and Rear dampers for the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow and Spirit series & Bentley T series.. and how to mount them!
These suspension dampers are from the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow series from 1966 onwards. This is the front damper from the early Silver Shadow and would have been fitted to cars that had height control on the front suspension, or pre-compliant cars. This is sometimes known as the 'short stroke' damper.
Rolls-Royce and Bentley models later moved to the long stroke damper which is part number UR71744. This damper is basically the same thing that was used, once they changed from the short stroke damper, all the way through the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadows and Silver Spirits and they only changed this damper when they introduced the active ride suspension in 1990. So this is the main damper you will see and there has always been an alternative to this damper - the Bilstein german damper, which we also stock at IntroCar. IntroCar now also has a Prestige Parts® version, which is sold with a three year warranty and it's basically designed to replicate the damping rate of the Bilstein damper. There has never been an aftermarket version of the front damper as far as we are aware, but now we have introduced it as part of the Prestige Parts® range with a three year warranty - part number RH3367.
So UR71744 and RH3367 are the suspension dampers for the Silver Shadow and Spirit pre-active ride. Then we look into the rear dampers. This is the standard 4 door and long wheel base rear damper - part number RH12437. Again this is a replica of the Bilstein version. It has the same damping rate and is exactly the same, but the only difference with is that they are actually gas filled. When you come to fit one of these it's very important that it goes up the right way and there is an arrow to show you which way up it should go. If you fit it upside down it won't damper anything.
This is the one for the convertible car, and again this hasn't been available as aftermarket product until now. The Prestige Parts® version shown here has a three year warranty. These are a bit more fiddly to fit because the rear dampers have the ram above them and you have to take the ram off, the height control ram, that actually pushes the suspension up when you load the car. You have to remove the ram to get to the top nut, so they are a bit fiddly to fit and the convertible one is even more fiddly because you have got the hood mechanism and everything in the way there - part number RH3372.
To take the front dampers out you have to compress the spring with a special tool. There is a Rolls-Royce tool available, it has two semi circles that bolt together underneath; the spring cup that sits here, they sit underneath so you can do it in situ on a car. Then you have got two rods that bolt through from the top plate; hold the spring in place and you can actually take the spring out and take the damper out quite easily. If you are trying to decompress the spring and change the spring it is a different matter because it is a much bigger spring compressor that you need to use. To change the dampers however is not a big deal as long as the seat is not seized. The spring seats are available new. They have to be shimmed to set the height right on the car, which is pretty straightforward.
At the bottom of these front dampers are the ball joints, there is a little housing that screws on and the ball joint screws into the housing and you set the ball joint up on shims, to set the tension right. This one comes with the gasket for the top plate as part of the kit and all of this comes as a kit. This has a different top plate because it's for the early cars with front height control, they have a hole in the top plate for another ram to screw on. A lot of people do actually modify and fit the later type of dampers which means the only thing you need to change is to change the top plate. When you change the top plate it comes with the bushes. With the rear damper, obviously the bushes are at either end and this is how it looks when they are on.
That is all for now on Rolls-Royce and Bentley dampers but if you would like to ask any questions, please feel free to comment and we will try to get back to you!
.jpg)
