Saggy Bottom Sorted Out!!

[BGD]

I posted a little while ago about the "saggy bottom" syndrome on our 1992 Eura Mobil (on a Peugeot J5 van base) - the rear leaf springs are very tired, and were actually bending up in the middle rather than down.

 

Ride was very wallowy indeed, and taking corners at anything above a crawl induced an alarming rate of lean.

 

After much research, and very useful advice from others, I ordered a pair of spring assisters from Grayston Engineering for my van (actually the spring assister kit recommended by them for a motorhome body on the Peugeot J5 chassis-cab is their "heavy duty" version, which consists of 2 coil springs per side rather than one).

The kit, which includes all the bits needed, cost £135 inc postage to a UK address.

 

Took a little while to get the kit sent on to here from the UK address I'd had to give them (they won't post to Spain), but I finally received the kit yesterday and have just fitted it.

 

FANTASTIC!!!!!

 

Handling is simply MILES better - there's still good suspension there, but much stiffened; no more wallowing at all, steering response is much sharper, and overall handling is totally incomparable with before.

 

This was money HUGELY well spent on our old dog of a van.

 

If anyone else is tempted to go the same way, self fitting is a fairly easy DIY job if you're handy with the spanners (takes maybe a couple of hours), but you do need a couple of beefy jacks (and of course axle stands) - one trolley jack to raise the body and allow the axle to drop down - and then another placed between the axle and the body to push the axle further away from the body to allow the springs to be fitted into their cups (supplied) on the top of the axle and the underneath of the chassis.

Also, although the (very straightforward) instructions don't mention it, the use of a coil spring compressor tool makes the job of actually locating the coil springs into place a helluva lot easier if your leaf springs have sagged and as a result the gap between the top of the axle and the chassis above is small.

 

I know this kit ain't as sophisticated as the bolt-on air ride assister kits you can get and it isn't ride-height adjustable, but for the money (less than half the price of even the cheapest air-assist kit) I really am enormously impressed with its effects on our vans handling.

 

So we now have a pert bottom!!! :-D

 

Cheers,

 

Bruce.