I had a little bit of a hunt to find the correct shock numbers for a 99 era coach with Ridewell rear and Dana IFS on the front.
Here they are:
Front Koni 90-1710SP3
Rear Koni 90-1868
Tag Gabriel 85000 Normal or 89436 Adjustable
Richard,
Do you have thoughts on the life of these shocks? I had Newell look at mine with an eye to replacing and they said that mine were all good. My bus is an '03 with 200k miles. How would one think about shock replacement intervals?
Thanks,
bill
Much depends on the type of driving you do and the roadways you drive on. That NASCAR coach is all highway flat driving and only some pot holes at the race tracks. You should be good for another 100k miles easy if your not dry camping in the Rockies..lol
Larry so you're saying the original shocks should last 200-300k miles?
Good to know. My '98 only has 100k on it.
Forest,
It does depend on many things like just one pot hole or pulling off the road in too steep an area can cause shock failure sooner, but if you stay off the Razor trails and keep it aligned and greased, you should be good for quite some time... the problem is that unless you bought your rig new, you never know what has taken place in the past and a failure can happen from previous stress..
The most normal sign of failure is an oil streak on the shock from leaking. They can fail without leaking oil. My experience is the best way to test a shock is to remove one end & compress & extend. There should be a very noticeable amount of resistance.
I elected to replace the shocks because I noticed too much porpoising and multiple oscillations with big dips. Also, one of the tag shocks is visibly broken. The bushings where the shocks connect to the frame are all multilated. It was a big bill, but I am in the honeymoon/ pimp it out stage with the new coach and all of you know I am OCD about handling.
You can take the shock loose from one mount and do a field test. If you can slowly move it with all your might, then that's about what a new one feels like. If you can move it easily then it's bad. I am just echoing what Steve said.
Richard,
I noticed you replaced the tag shocks with Gabriels. Was this personal choice or due to the fact that Koni offered none for the tag?
Also did you find that any of the shocks that you replaced had lost their resistance?
I could not find a reliable cross ref for the Gabriel to koni. I was using the Gabriel number from the shock on the coach which crossed to the Gabriel number I listed above. I have not put them on yet. That will wait until the thermometer crosses freezing and the snow quits. I'll report on what I find when I take the old ones off.
From my owners manual I found the same Koni number you used for your front shocks. A minor difference in the drive axle number of 90C-1868--the added "C" may not be important. The listed Koni shock for the tag is 90C-1813.