As suitable air shocks are not available I decided to make my own. Range Rovers use air suspension but they have separate air springs and shock absorbers. I don't have enough room for that setup so I decided to mount the shocks inside the air springs forming an air 'coilover' shock.

Shock aborbers are fairly easily available with the long travel I need but they are designed for heavy off-roaders such as Land Rovers. Due to this I ended up ordering some custom length dampers from Gaz shocks. Considering that they were custom made to my specs I thought the price was quite reasonable.

My only complaint is the quality of the machining on the outer body. As you can see, some of them are quite rough. This is a concern as I need to be able to seal on that surface.

This is the top of a Range Rover air suspension unit. It needs to be modified to attach to the damper. due to the shape of the air connection I had to machine out the whole of the centre and fit an insert.

After some time on the lathe and mill I ended up with these. The smaller discs bolt onto the top plates then the damper bolts through the lot.

The plates are clamped in place between a 'top hat' nut and the damper eye. All joints are sealed with silicone rubber sealant.

The bottom is machined out to the diameter of the damper with a recess for an O ring seal

The seal is held in place with this ring. The groove in the ring is to locate a snap ring that will hold it in place on the damper body.

This is the snap ring. It will obviously have to be split with a saw before it can be fitted.

The snap ring fitted into a groove in the damper body. The body of the damper is quite thick walled tube so the groove will not weaken it excessively.

The finshed article, mounted on the front.

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