Perfect is the enemy of good
On a related note, the Daytona shop manual shows a front bump-stop that looks like this: Image Unavailable, Please Login And if you check the specs for shock travel in the manual, you find that they correspond to a bump-stop that is something like 30mm tall. But.. ...if you look at Ted's pic of an original front shock (73), the bump-stop is only maybe half that and a completely different shape: Image Unavailable, Please Login Now the ones on my 72 look like Ted's, and measured about 12mm tall. My shocks have date-codes that look original, but it seems pretty clear to me that they were worked on at some point, so I can't vouch for the originality of the bump-stops. So does anyone have more insight into when exactly the production change might have happened? I'm basically just trying to figure-out if I need to look for new bump-stops... Something interesting to ponder is that while one could argue that if one removes the "compressable nose" of the shop-manual bump-stop, one gets the height of the 72/73 bump-stops, those later bump-stops are obviously going to allow travel that is out of spec from the shop-manual. Which makes me wonder whether the later bump-stops might allow some rubbing of the fender liners...
Hi Rory, So no one local had that color, but NPD did deliver it to me very quickly. Here are the comparisons: Image Unavailable, Please Login Interestingly, I had already gone through my RAL deck again and concluded that the two that overall seemed best were RAL 3013 and RAL 3000, and lo-and-behold, that VHT SP503 was pretty close to RAL 3000. Nice! That SP503 is actually even more of a red than the SP119, and much more red than the Duplicolor. In the above pictures, the SP119 does almost seem to have a hint of orange when compared to the SP503, and to me, SP119 is already "not orange at all". Note also, that you can see why our direct-sun shots looked so similar; under that light, the two colors are pretty close. Overall, I think I favor the RAL 3013, and thus, I'll probably end-up shooting the VHT SP119. While there is a good argument for the VHT SP503, to me it just looks sort of "too bright" or maybe "too modern" and as consequence just feels little different than those old shocks I have. Also, the SP119 cuts a little closer to that Porsche shock that I have (though in-the-flesh, even the SP119 is too bright, and the RAL 3013 would be better). This picture illustrates what I mean a little better than the above: Image Unavailable, Please Login I do find it very interesting that NPD sells that SP503 as "73 Mustang Koni Shock"; at least someone else seems to think that Konis of that era were pretty much a red. Finally, I'm not really sure how to reconcile your statement that SP503 is "a bit more red" compared to your 911 Koni, with your other statement that your 911 shock is "orange-ish", but might just be a difference in how we both define "bit". In that last picture I would say that (1) the SP503 is significantly more red than the Duplicolor, (2) bit more red than the SP119, and (3) a bit brighter than the SP119. Based on the above picture, would you guess that your 911 shock is more like the Duplicolor, or more like the SP119? BTW: What were the date-codes on your front shocks, and what kind of bump-stops were on them? Cheers, Alex
View attachment 3281271 View attachment 3281272 View attachment 3281271 View attachment 3281272 Our shocks must have been service replacements as they were all dated 3/70, several months after the car was built. They were also painted grey over the original Koni paint for some reason. As you can see, the bump stops looked like Ted's '73. Another day, another slightly misleading photo. This is the '73 911 shock cover cleaned up a bit. It's a little more red in person, and pretty closely matches your SP119 in indirect sunlight. This is what we are thinking to give our painter to match based on your work, and a conversation we had last Friday with Jeff LeBlond in Pheonix who has been rebuilding Konis for many years. He said that through his many communications with Koni, they actually used 4 different paint codes over the years but they can generally be grouped into the "red" orange and the "orange" orange since the other variations were so subtle. He has dialed in powdercoat formulas that he feels are correct, but we aren't willing at this point to disassemble our freshly rebuilt shocks to have him powdercoat them. He recommended that we have someone who is good at color matching use our '73 911 cover as a guide. So in the end, I think we are both gravitating towards a similar color. Thanks for all your help in this and I look forward to being included in your next research project. Rory View attachment 3281270 View attachment 3281270 View attachment 3281271
Hi Rory, My guess is that you've gotten your shocks back from rebuild by now, right? If so, was Performance able to supply new copies of those "disk" bump-stops for the front shocks (and if so, do they look right), or did they just reuse the old ones that were on the shocks? I'm getting ready to send mine in, and am trying to assess what the available options are... Thanks in advance, Alex
Alex, Our old ones appeared to be hard black rubber and had so much paint on them that they probably would have never looked or worked well. They used a white plastic disk that seemed to be about the same size and since it slides on to the shaft before the top eyelet is attached, it ends up getting painted like the original so I'm hoping that the white is essentially covered. They are still in the queue at the painters. I made the mistake of telling them that we were in no hurry for them. Rory
Ok, so to cap off (at least my part of) this thread, I finally got my shocks rebuild and refinished. I went with RAL 3013, and here is the result: Image Unavailable, Please Login First pic is how the shocks came back from Performance Shock (in grey primer); note that in the "you can never assume anything" column, the shocks were fitted with completely different silent blocks than the samples that I paid for to verify that they looked correct; samples looked much like the originals, but the fitted ones looked completely different. Similarly, Performance Shock drilled an additional set of set-pin holes into all the silent-block "eyelets"; which I found hyper annoying. Sigh... Note: I have to retract my assertion that the typical "disk" front bump stops are shorter than what the factory shop manual specifies. My original measurements forgot to account for the fact that my shock silent blocks were crushed, and thus had centers that were too close together. I also forgot to account for the thickness of the locking plates that hold the top spring-seat in place. With both those things taken into account, it looks to me like the bump-stops need to be about 12mm tall; pretty close to the 11mm of the old ones that came off my shocks (implying of course that the cross-section in the shop-manual is not right). I fitted a pair of rubber disks from Cicognani; these are meant for some other model, so the hole diameter and overall diameter are both too small, but the hole is easy to correct, and visually the final result is better than what Performance Shock could provide. Second pic shows one of the shocks after paint and decal, in direct sun. The other two shocks are my reference ones from 1972. Third pic is the full assemblies under indoor light without any flash, and fourth pic is with a flash; notice how orange (at least on my computer monitor) the shocks look in the flash photo, even though the shocks look like a dull red in person. Never trust a photo for color... And here is one of the rears in my home-rebuild/refinished rear suspension: Image Unavailable, Please Login Again, don't let the photo fool you; the shocks are *not* orange...
Sorry I missed your wrap-up post initially. You're right - when I first glanced at the photo of your completed project, I thought "he went with the later orange Koni paint for some reason". Reading the text explains what you actually did. As usual, great info with much needed detail. Thanks for posting this, Rory
“Performance Shock” was the name of the rebuilder; in Sonoma, CA. Nice folks, but they are not dedicated to preservation or correctness (of course, I think they are not unique in this regard). I’d use them again, but would be a lot more prescriptive next time... No paint code; I used one of the online folks that will custom mix spray cans of RAL colors. Color accuracy was good, but paint did not adhere well to the primer that Performance Shock used, so I had to do a bunch of touch-ups. If I had it all to do over again, I would not have had Performance Shock do the primer. It had a lot of contamination on it by the time they got to me, so prep was significant anyway, and like I said, I had adhesion problems. Better probably to go with bare metal and control the whole coating stack. Might even have gone with the VHT SP119, as color was not terrible (but not as good as the RAL 3013), and I suspect the paint itself would have been “tougher”...
Well, the obvious things are the ones listed in my post; I would have supplied the silent blocks and told them to install those exact items, and probably sourced the lock-pins myself, so that they would have no excuse to drill additional holes in the eyelets (and told them that new holes were verboten).
current rebuild from performance shocks for a 328. what is the correct decal for 1970-71? Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Current Performance Shocks color is not likely to be right for 71/72 in my opinion, but I think I've already made that pretty clear in this thread. I have a 73 date-code Daytona shock, and while the original decal is long-gone, it has the "wing" logo stamped into it, so I think it is safe to assume that the decal would have been the "wing" type. My recollection (it has been a while since I researched all this), the "triangle" kicked-in in 74 (but I could be recalling incorrectly).
