I have a Hudson Nash Metropolitan. Now a shock for this thing is absurd as are all other parts to buy.
55-57 Bel Air shocks fit it and are obviously a little stiffer. Now on the other hand I have a brand new set of Buick Shocks I've tried putting on everything from a Camaro to a F100. They never traveled far enough.
They are heavy duty and the Met has about 2 inches of suspension travel. I'm going to try put them on as they are free and I'm thinking compatible to the bel air shocks.
Any reason why you shouldn't just throw a random strut on anything? There is nothing more random than the varying air pressures of the 10 million Gabriel Air shocks that have been sold for years and years (actually considered these on the Met and did run a set on the Camaro)
This is not referring to drag suspension set ups or road racers. On a DD or show car only...
A shock is just a dampener for the springs / suspension. They dampen motion. If it doesn't dampen enough, you might bottom out, or bounce down the road, if it dampens to much you will get a very stiff ride.
Only real dangers are putting really really stiff ones on and maybe breaking the mounts, or putting crazy miss matched ones on and go performance driving and maybe spin.
So, give them a shot. Test on a bumpy road and see if the car bottoms out, bounces down the road, or rattles your teeth out.
You can get weird transitional effects, assuming that the shocks were ever tuned for the application.
I know that Fox-body KYB GR2s will have way too much rebound damping on an RX-7 and not nearly enough compression. So you go over light dips on the road and the suspension bottoms out and takes a second or two to come back up to ride height.
OTOH, I have rear struts for a WRX on the front of the RX-7 now, and the damping feels really good, save for a little bit too much initial compression damping. But it feels great if you just plow into stuff, so it's more incentive to just fly over potholes...
You got nothing to lose but handling, and it's practically a '50s car soooo...
Handling and Nash Metro NEVER go together, so...you're fine.
I read somewhere that someone had asked Bilstein about the valving in their shocks, and I am probably remembering wrong, but it seemed to amount that it was all roughly the same on their shocks and as long as you are in the general range the exact valving isnt going to be too crucial. But take that with a few grains of salt, I'm half remembering what someone paraphrased from someone else.
just throw them on... if it handles like crap, take them off and try something different..
I measured them. 5in too short fully extended. I'm going with heavy duty 57 bel air springs.
We've done really well at the Challenge with a van spring cut in half paired with a Rancho truck shock found while digging through the boxes behind the counter at vatozone. I wouldn't worry about it. Then again, there are very few things I do worry about. YMMV.
