REAS suspension removal

I've had a knocking from my front suspension for a while now. At first it was only apparent for the first few miles of driving and then stopped but over time it continued to knock for longer and longer.

I've tried on the Oz and US forums to get some info on the REAS system, and there is a schematic of its operation on the Oz site but no one could advise much about the removal refitting or servicing of the system.

I had sourced some used bilsteins and so i though i would remove the REAS shocks to hopefully cure the knock but also to see if the system could be repaired.

Anyhow here are some pictures to show the system, i know only a few may benefit from this info but if there's a 'me' in a few years then it may help................then again they'll probably just rip it out and fit some normal shocks!

Ok first pic's show the fluid line from the base of the shock and the pipework to the first valve?control? box.

pipes continue to the 'third' damper positioned on the passenger side on the sub frame crossmember, x3 12mm bolts secure it and are tricky to access........

When i removed the shocks i supported them with the top mounts pointing downwards slightly before undoing the fluid line bolts. Very little fluid leaked from the lines however this may be a consequence of the steady leakage of fluid over the preceeding months.

When removed the whole system i cut the long secton of pipe work that went from the third damper to the drivers side damper. This was an 'executive' decision as the light was fading and i wanted try out the new shocks. In hindsight i would have undone the pipework whilst the 3rd damper was still bolted in place once free it wasn't going to happen and i didn't fancy bolting it back on at that stage.

I will try and report on how i find the new normal setup and whether it rolls more or feels different. The knocking is gone and the ride over 'ripples' is now far better.

I think i will clean up the old stuff and ask Nic for prices on replacement bits to see if it is even economically viable to refit at some point, even then i don't know how i go about getting the right amount of fluid in the system etc.

laid out as it is on the car.......

Hi Scooter! I'm actually one of the very few "me" that is now facing the same problem you had. Thank you! I'm now considering whether to strip the entire REAS out and swap them with the aftermarket ones, or replace them with the original parts. As you can imagine, getting the factory originals can be very costly...

Any idea if any aftermarket shocks (HKS, TEIN, etc) would fit fine after stripping out the REAS? Also, how would you rate the level of technical difficulty if I were to perform the swap myself with simple tools?

Oh, I plan to do it for both front and rear...

Thanks in advance!

Firstly for the rears I cannot provide much advice as mine were fine and I left them alone. I would say that I noticed no problem with having the rear REAS and the front 'normal' suspension.

I used regular yellow bilstein shocks to replacer the leaking fronts(I swapped the REAS springs over but not the Bump stops as these were noticeably longer than the standard bilstein ones).

Besides cost the other reason I didn't replace the REAS shocks was I couldn't see a way of ensure the fluid levels would be correct post fitting. It's a bit like taking a break caliper off, refitting, but then being able to bleed them? The fluids not under pressure (at least not with the car/both wheels of the ground) in the pipes but i couldn't see a way of refilling, and as you are probably finding out there's little information about on the subject.

Stripping the REAS stuff out is fairly straight forward, especially if you know you aren't going to reuse it...........I started out thinking i might refit the REAS in the future but got to a stage where to remove it I needed/decided to snip through the pipe work to make this easier.

If you want to retain all the bits to possible reuse then you need to try and undo the "pipe to centre damper" unions as in one piece the pipes + this central damper can't be removed.