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Dirt-540

What oil for Falcon rear shocks

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Serviced both front and rear shocks on what is to be my Falcon runner today. However I hit a bit of a snag. I cleaned them up and dried them, now for the oil. I had just enough Tamiya oil for 2 shocks and some cheap Bycmo silicone oil for the other 2. I put the Bycmo in the front shocks and the Tamiya in the rears. Now the fronts are perfect, nice and plush and soft. But the rears are like hard and stiff, basically the back end will be like its on ice. There wasn't any info on the Tamiya oil bottle, I just know its a few years old as I got it with an ebay win 2 years ago, the bottle is a blue colour. Im guessing the viscosity is no good. So what oil should I be putting in the rears? and should I use silicone rather than traditional oil? Do I buy Tamiya oil 53443?

Cheers

Jamz

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The trick is to use the pistons with 4 huge holes. That, plus the yellow " medium" Tamiya oil should get you in the ballpark.

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Stock Falcon rear springs are very hard, try some softer ones along with the 4 hole pistons and it handles very well for a 28 year old

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Don't use a 4 holes piston rod if you want to have a good set up (and the 4 holes piston rod also fits tight inside the damper cylinder and doesn't work smooth, don't know why).

The best choice is small holes (one or two) with very soft oil.

Try rear softer springs then make some try with the oils.

If you have 4 holes with thick oil the dampers will be not smooth and will be not able to absorb great fast impacts.

The rule for a correct set up is this one:

Rise the rear end of the car and left it going down.

The rear end must touch the ground and then the rear end must rise up for 75% of damper extension. Have a look at the rear half shafts. They must be horizontal. This is the right set up. The remaining 25% of the damper extension will be used when the wheels will find an hole. In this case only the wheels will go down in the hole, not the entire car. If the dampers are totally extended if you will find an hole all car will finish inside it.

Make the same thing with front end. The lower front arms must be horizontal when the car is at full load. Use soft springs at front and very very soft oil.

I don't know if I explained well, I'm sorry I'm not English mother tongue.

Another tip for smoothness: mount your one or two holes piston rod on a Dremel (or any model drill) and eliminate the sharp edges of the piston making them round against a sandpaper. This will add smoothness.

I suggest to totally replace the Falcon dampers, especially the rear ones because their measurements are wrong.

The damper cylinders are too long and the piston shafts are short. So you have a long dampers with short compression.

This means that the bottom of the car will not touch the ground. You will have a bad set up with a bouncing car and the bumps will not be absorbed at full compression and will be discharged over the top shock mounts. For this reason often the Falcon front damper mounts are broken.

Choose some dampers (alloy dampers are better) with the same extended length but shorter when compressed. You will gain suspension travel, smoothness and fun and will save the shock towers.

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Thanks guys. I think I need to buy item 53443 then as I have no oils at all. Will try new oils with the existing 2 hole set up first, then change if I feel it still aint good enough with the new #200 or #300 silicone oil.

@kontemax: Thanks for the info, it makes perfect sense.

Cheers all :)

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I ran associated 25 or 30wt in mine, if anything the 25wt was better with two hole piston.

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