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Hi all,
I rebuilt the rear Associated bottom loading shocks on my late Edinger. I put in some spacers to reduce down travel, making sure that I spaced both shocks the same. When I reinstalled them on the car, I realized the shocks were two different lengths when fully extended! I have disassembled and reassembled both. They both seem identical, and I have them installed the same way, but one is longer then the other. Could the tolerances at the factory just be high enough that there are shafts and bodies of differing lengths, or is something else going on? It is only a difference of a few millimeters.
Thanks!

Could be the spacers.
Could be the rod ends are different lengths or not turned on the same amount. Or the shock shafts are different.
O-ring stuck in the bottom of shock body?
I doubt factory tolerance defect

Pics or it didn't happen.

A difference of a "few millimeters" is large enough that you may be using shock parts of two different lengths. (e.g. .56" &.71" bodies or shafts)

check to see if the spacers are the same also,there are diff spacers also....JohnnySr

Check fluid in them ,sometimes to much wont let it settle like the other shock.Just loosen cap enuff to compress a leak out enuff to fully compress.DON

The spacers are the same right and left. They are different lengths unloaded. With a load, they are almost the same.
I'll have pics soon.
Edit: here's a picture. Note that the right-side arm goes down farther. I added lines to help illustrate this. This is under no load. When the car is on the ground, they are almost even.

have you verified shock shaft lengths? i know this may be trivial but over the years of aquiring goldpans as parts cars and some as runners and some with bags of various parts i have on more than one occasion came across this and it was either shock shaft length,or something as simple as the rod end on the shock shaft threaded out a couple of turns. the shock end trick is actually a very good tuning tool when you want to fine tune the shocks performance and has been widly used in oval application with the rc10 in buggy and truck form. i just returned a rc10t back to offroad specs from oval specs and the right side shocks the ends were turned out 3 turns and the shocks were even afterwards. also sometimes in the haste of things when the prior owner was reasembling the shocks they dont fully screw on the rod end or when assempling a car from various parts they dont verify shock shaft length. just get out the calipers and verify the shaft length or see if the end is unscrewed a turn or two. hope this helps.

That's a lot of droop. Did you check to make sure the suspension isn't at fault? The stops on the arms wear and will let one arm fall more than the other. If the shocks are identical until bolted on the car, might be something to look at. Also, try swapping shocks and see if the concern changes sides.

exactly. check the arms on the bottom near the chassis and the 'stops' molded in.

for the early cars, you should have 1.32" shock bodies, and 1.32" shock shafts, with 5/8" long fuel tube (or spacers) installed according to the manual.

you may also use 1.32" bodies with 1.02" shafts as per worlds car, and later versions, with .093" spacers installed.

to me, it looks like your arms are bottomed out on the chassis, and it just happens to be worse on one side than the other.

Yup, put the rear shocks in teh most external holes on the arms and decrease the amount of camber too so that your wheels are either perpendicular to the ground when the buggy is on the ground or slightly leaning inwards. You might also check if both shocks have the same internal spacers.