Mysterious Shock Absorber

[atk1]

Hi, I have an ambo front end with factory discs. I think it use to run a 202? I need to replace 1 of the front shocks but they are different that the usuals. The top has a shaft but the bottom has a wheel shaped thing with a bolt through maybe? But then it also has the shaft connected to that maybe? If anyone can help identify what I need that would be awesome. I cant remove it at the mo as I need to use the van over the next 4 or 5 days

[BusyKiwi]

That looks standard, the round plate just holds it in, is 2 piece.
When your ready. undo the 2 outer nuts and the middle shock nut and the round plate will come off, there is another inside the arm (that has the bolts), push the shock up, remove the inner disc and after unbolting the top of the shock it will fall out.

I can take some pictures of the discs if you want

[atk1]

Cheers Busy, if u can that would be good. The middle bolt is thicker than the one on the new shock. It also looks like the new shocks bottom shaft wont be long enough to reach thru. Cheers

[atk1]

Getting closer...a guy on behalf of the shock shop had a quick look and reckons its been modded to use a different shock. Possibly welded to the plate or something. He thinks I might be able to use the standard shock if I use another plate providing the height is still ok

[Sundownernz]

It looks to be modified to me to fit a different shock. I would say there is a U shaped bracket with the bolt that's through the middle of the bottom plates welded to it. The two legs of the U go up either side of the round mount on the bottom of the shock with the horizontal bolt through it. As Busy said, it should still come out the bottom same as the standard shock and you might get away with fitting a standard shock back in using the existing mounting plates if the hole in the middle of the plates haven't been drilled out too big.

Cheers,
Garry.

[Gordon]

I think you are spot on Garry. Quite an interesting conversion. I wonder if they did it just because they had a set of these shocks lying around or if the modified shocks give a better ride. I guess we will never know.

[John Abbott]

I wonder if being an ambulance frontend it was made for extra weight?

[atk1]

Sorted. The bottom plate was only slightly curved while the inner bottom plate (with the 2 bolts) was flat. It has England stamp into it too?

[Gordon]

That shock looks more robust than a standard one to me.

[BusyKiwi]

Has it got a squash tube in the eye of the shock, factory should have