I was bleeding my brakes for the first time on the Mav today. And I noticed my rear shocks say "Hi Performance Air Adjustable".. I thought they where stock until now.. Has anyone ever seen these or owned a set before?. theres fittings on them where air lines used to be. I followed the remaining pieces of hose to the rear valance where the two air lines meet at a mounted air valve. Like a tire valve stem... They're pretty kool if they're from the 70s era and still work. Your thoughts?
Don't use them, or use them only at minimum pressure until you can swap them out. They don't act as shocks at all, but transfer body movement to the flat sheetmetal behind the rear seat, eventually shoving the top of the shock up into the rear seat. Hopefully nobody is sitting there...
LOL.. Well it will be one hellavah ride knowing we're all in danger!.... What should I replace them with? And why would some spend there time engineering such and sell em to us!?... Was this kool in the 70s?
Extremely cool in the 70's - I had a set of Gabrial Hi-Jackers on my Duster that kept the body up off of my L-60 tires THEN--------------I drove the top shock mounts right through the sheet metal trunk floor - the fender wells came down on those nice L-60 tires and the inner fender lip ripped right into the sidewalls GET RID OF THEM
Just get some stock replacements like gabriels. They werent engineered just for the maverick, they are universal pieces. They could care less if they rip out your mounts, other car models have much betters mounts and can get away with them.
What's the best way to get some lift in the back without shackles or modifying the leafs? My air shocks have worked fine for 4 years at about 60psi and worked for 3 years back in the 70's even towing a ski boat. I like the adjustability of them and have thought about welding a plate like some have done to keep them on my car. I'm fortunate that my car was a california car and doesn't show any hint of weakness under there.
What I had done, when the air shocks failed on my Duster, was have an extra leaf added to each side and the remaining leafs re-arched. They then bolted a length of angle iron to the bottom of the trunk floor, with new shock mounts fastened to it and a piece of flat bar stock to the top of the floor. Then they installed a set of 3 way adjustable Gabrial shocks. With the spring work the rear fender lips sat about an inch above the wide tires but I never had to worry about air shock failure again.
Wise choice. Listen to these guy's' they been dealin w/ these cars for decades - they know what they are talkin about. Save urself a lot of grief.
We used Gabriel (Hijackers) in the Seventies, same thing, not good for a mav. In the day it was cool to have Hijackers and N-50, Mickey thompsons on your car.
The Micky Thompsons I used had that repeating tread pattern that looked like a thousand letter "I"'s. Every time it rained, they made the car slide like it was on ice - no grip at all-----------but again COOL
What though can I do without having to endure the cost of the leaf spring "upgrade"? Any shock out there that'll give me the lift I need?
No shock will give you any lift unless it is an air shock. The car at that lifted height should still sit on the springs - not the shocks
