Re: differant rear shocks
As was already suggested, shocks, or better called "dampeners," do nothing about how stiff springs are. Improper compression dampening can give a harsh ride, but that isn't your issue. Before you do anything drastic I would make sure the conversion is fully to the point you want it to be as weight plays a huge role.
You can spend a lot of money to get the ride you want. Air ride is ultimately going to be the best, but it's going to cost some money and take some engineering. It might be easier to find a bus with factory air ride (they are becoming more common on the used market now). I'm not sure about the feasibility of removing individual leafs. I just don't have experience doing it on medium duty trucks. I have done it on lighter duty stuff though. The trick was to cut the spring off behind the axle leaving the front half alone. The rear half (or shackle side half) is what supports the load. The front half is there mostly just for purposes of axle location. Removing the rear half softens the ride, but retains most of the height because the thickness of the leaf is retained. It also leaves am element in place to fight axle wrap.
A quick and easy trick for softening the ride would simply be to run less air in the tires. Your tires may well have 105 psi in them because this is what the placard says. However, that placard lists the tire pressure for maximum load which you are nowhere near. A good tire place should have a chart available giving you the load rating of the tires at a particular pressure. Ask anyone with a 1 ton pickup. They might run 80 psi in them when loaded, but I bet they drop it down to about 40-50 unloaded to soften the ride.
|