KW road smoothers

[greenacres36]

Are they able to be disassembled? I have a set on the back of my car currently and would like to know if the spring cover/cylinder can be removed. I thought maybe it was screwed on but I don’t want to destroy them. I’d rather remove them and put them on the shelf then destroy them.


Thanks

Brian

[Sheri]

It has been ten years now and perhaps we need a reminder of the dangers of aftermarket chassis parts that are not made of the same materials that ford used in their parts. The failure of an aftermarket spring perch/shock absorber resulted in the death of Ken Meek during the 2011 MTFCI tour in Minnesota. When these things come into my possession i disable them permanently. The shelf is where they belong in my opinion, not on a car. Ford realized this at the time and insisted on all ford parts being marked with the trademark. Aftermarket parts were often cast iron instead of the more durable vanadium steel used by Ford. Ask yourself what happens if the part fails at speed.With shocks that replace the ford spring perch the result of failure will likely be catastrophic. Fun stuff to collect but lets not lose sight of the shortcomings of this stuff.

[greenacres36]

Never mind. I’ll figure it out.

[ThreePedalTapDancer]

The shock cover unthreads and can be removed to clean or relube.

6ACB04BE-EF40-4081-AEFC-8FDCE882D1BD.jpeg (100.3 KiB) Viewed 1507 times

The KW shocks are a beautiful looking shock with a nice brass nameplate. I would have no reservations using them. There is one design of rarely seen aftermarket shocks that caused a death years back, most common ones are serviceable even if the shock absorbing benefit is questionable.

Further discussion on a particular dangerous design here.

http://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/257047/299388.html

[greenacres36]

Thanks for that information. They are on the rear of a roadster of mine. I’m really thinking about removing them but I was just curious how they fit together. Sort of like to take them apart and see how they function. They look to be a sturdy design but I would never run them on the front. As with any vehicle out there modifications to the front suspension can get you in a world of hurt quickly. Not just model T’s.
No doubt some companies manufactured better quality parts than others but I’m sure Henry’s metallurgy was not that great either compared by today’s standards. If that was the case, we probably wouldn’t have to worry about broken crankshaft.