In the eternal quest to improve the handling of the car I went to Freestyle on the way back from a business trip for a chat about what they could do. I came away having placed an order for their live axle handling kit (dampers and springs). I had also decided to go for spherical joints on the rear axle as this is meant to help with the handling as it allows the axle to move without trying to bend the damper. Due to the space on the live axle mounts I went for steel bodied rear dampers as the mounting is a bit smaller, but I went for Alloy on the fronts.
The dampers arrived a few days later and I fitted them over a weekend. My initial impression in the garage was that the rear felt quite stiff. To the extent that I double checked they were set on full soft. They were. I decided I would wait and see what they were like on the road, which would be a while, due to the time of the year.
When I did finally get to try them out I was pleased, the car felt a lot more composed compared to the old Spax, which had probably served their time over the years. My only gripe was that the rear was really too stiff and it felt quite tiring on a long drive. I, however, decided to wait and see if they bedded in with time, although I did try fitting some other springs to see if the supplied ones were significantly stiffer. They weren't. With hindsight I should have gone back to Freestyle at this point and had a chat about them being too stiff and giving a tiring ride, but I didn't as I had a trip to Spain and then Classic Le Mans planned for the year and I didn't want to be without my car. However, I did find a solution, see ProTech.

Spherical Joint	Front Damper	Rear Damper	Rear Damper