My 86 sport with about 29k miles has really harsh ride. The wasn’t treated kindly by the previous owner. The car sat injured outside for years. I’m wondering with even with the low mileage the shocks could be DOA. I haven’t noticed any leakage from them.

The car doesn’t sag and it handles pretty well but the ride will jar your fillings out.

Any ideas? I could be way off in my assessment and
I’d appreciate any and all suggestions. TIA

Greydog

 

I once owned an '86 Sport. Bought it new from a dealership in Cincinnati, OH. You are absolutely correct about the harsh ride. It was a very harsh ride. but the car handled extremely well. The Sport model came with the hard suspension springs and dampers. Those dampers are ~35 years old. I'm sure they're rusted and all the rubber bushings have deteriorated. Probably the best way to check them would be to disassemble them and hand test each damper individually. But, if you go through all that work and really didn't like the ride to begin with than it might be worth considering replacing them.

Currently, I own a '90 GXL. Bought it new from Brown's Mazda in Alexandria, VA. It came stock with AAS (Auto Adjust Suspension). My current suspension consists of Eibach Pro-Kit progressive rate springs and KYB AGX manually adjustable dampers. The Eibach Pro-Kit springs are no longer available for FC3. The KYB AGX dampers are still available. Rockauto is one vendor that sells them at a good price and KYB is offering a rebate until 6/30 on a set of four (https://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/...on,strut,75840). The rears are 8-position externally adjustable and the fronts are 4-position externally adjustable. So, ride can be adjusted from boulevard cushy to stiff as board. Hope this helps.

 

Hot Dog,

Thanks for your input. The car is in the paint shop now. I'll take a closer look when I get it back.
Thanks again.