Rear Strut bleeding

[Dave WM]

I recently decided my rear struts needed refurbing. I was thinking of going with cartridges but I decided to keep it all orig and try just fixing the stock setup. I only needed to replace oil and I changed the O ring. I did the bleed per the manual but I did not do it well. I can see why cartridges are so popular, bleeding can be pain, esp due to weight of the strut/drum assembly. Anyway after noticing that the struts did not damp well unless pumped a few times after the install I decided I would give it another go. I also realized that I had not put in a bumper. Now this was mainly due to the fact that there was no bumper when I took it apart. there was a lot of tan debris that I just assumed was accumulated dirt and gunk. Anyway I thoroughly cleaned out the gunk, repainted the spring hats, and installed some non OE (urethane, OE was NLA) bumpers and put the assy though an EXTENSIVE bleed. this included multiple pumping and inversions per the FSM, I mean a LOT prob 20 times easy. I don't know if this is normal, maybe there is some good technique involved that I was not doing but eventually they seemed to operate much some NOS non gas carts that I had to compare the action to. After reinstalling I can say the damping in immediate now, and very effective. Actually the stock setup seem a bit more aggressive than the cartridges, but it was only a subjective feel no actual measurements. Now I just have to pull the fronts off and install the bumpers. for some reason I was able to get the bleeding done right on those based on how it damps.