Has anyone rebuilt the shocks on a GEM or sent them out to a rebuilding service? I have a lot of services like that around me, was wondering if it is worth it.
Thats like me asking you “A new hamburger joint opened up in the city where i live, are they any good?”
New shocks on a gem are $260/pair at NEVA.
You do the math.
I’ve been chewing on how best to respond to this for a couple days.
Short answer is this: No. There is no “rebuild” service for the shocks that come on the Gem. They are just not meant for that. They are a cheap welded closed and more/less considered a disposable item. A rebuildable shock is more of a race/high performance aftermarket item in another price bracket.
Long answer gets complicated.
Then I thought about what your definition of “rebuild” might be. Perhaps you are needing your rubber bushings pressed out and new ones pushed in? I believe I have seen a few people doing that, but a person would need to source the bushings and have the tooling to press the new ones in. This is more of a local service shop. You should pose this question to your personal mechanic if you have one.
Perhaps your suspension is sagging, showing increased and uneven tire wear and you are in need of replacement springs? Sorry, There are not many rebuild options for this either. You need to source new complete units, or locate one of the many scrappers selling used pulls off cars.
Or are you noticing how rough your car rides and assuming your shocks need rebuilding? This is also a tough solution with no easy answer.
Note- Original Post gives no hint at what car this is.
The early Gen1 cars (00~04) are well known for riding(and steering) like a dump truck. They just do. They were really never intended to go further than from the garage to the greens. A person needs to get into suspension study and design to realize what is going on under there.
Some things can be done to help, but even GEM realized there is not much can be done to Gen1 and sent their boys back to school for the Gen2 changes in '05. They continued to refine it even up to today’s new cars.
Reading that made me work up an appetite.
Burgers?
Do you have a Farmer Boys up there?
OMG! They are fave of this house. Their fries are top shelf!
No. But I’ve got the ultimate dive bar & burger joint built into a 1920 gas station. Look up Plainfield Station.
Dagnabbit! Now I’m hankering’ for a burger too!
Maybe even a beer!
*** Tangent alert!!! ***
If you start driving now, we can meet for lunch tomorrow. They even allow smoking out bsck, ill bring the cigars.
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Good lord we have really gone off the rails now.
Dad is going to come in and clear house for sure and somebody is going to get a whippin’
Not like the OP ever came back. I think that makes this our sandbox now
Plus, dad can have a cigar too.
Yeah sort of what I thought. Being an old racer, any shock can be rebuild, revalved, etc… Sort of like the old saying 
in out. The new ones from NEV are not much better. i guess it really comes down to GEM suspension design just sucks, geometry is all wrong. BTW its a 2002. Not to mention GEM sourced there parts from the most obscure suppliers.
Good lord! If anyone was keeping track, I think this has been one of the slowest responses/replies in quite a while. I think you need an award or something.
Maybe your idea of a rebuild service is different than mine?
If you have the proper compression tools you could probably figure out how to get the springs off, press out the degraded rubber bushings, give it a quick sand and coat of paint, then put it back together.
i guess it really comes down to GEM suspension design just sucks, geometry is all wrong. BTW its a 2002.
Yes it was horrible. It was so bad that they did the first redesign in 2005, and several upgrades even later.
I know of a few people that have gone to such extremes to have cut off both ends and stuck the suspensions from later donor cars onto the Gen1 frame. So far they are working out great.
Can we go back to talking about burgers and beer?
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I’ll chime in. The Shock market for gem?
Your would need to have shocks for
- Early cars 2000- 2004 with flooded battery’s
- Early cars 2000-2004 with lithium
- 2005-2012 flooded
- 2005-2012 lithium
- 2013-2015 flooded
- 2013-2015 lithium
So that’s 6 different pairs or combos & that’s just for the front shocks we have not even got into the rear shocks so that could be another 4 different combos. Who’s down for the Challange. NOT Me.
But while we are on the subject of shocks and early cars, it’s pretty amazing that Gem made one shock for the front of their cars that worked on like 5 different cars. And some years the rears and the fronts were the exact same shock. And some pick up trucks used 2 shocks per wheel in the rear. Talk about doing the most with 1 part LOL
That being said My 2013 car rode pretty good with lithium. It was not like the early cars with battery’s up front when they got rid of their flooded lead acid weight they became pogo sticks bouncing down the road
Mine has air shocks on the rear. The front are original and are still working great.
hree different dampers, with possibly different springs for each
With proper threaded preload adjusters, you probably could use the same springs
The stock or NEV dampers are cheap
The NEV replacements for my 13 are nearly an inch shorter, less travel, under damped & at $100 each overpriced
A gas charged, quality adjustable damper, with slightly more travel would improve the ride
Looks like a single shock from the rear of a motorcycle, finding a match, ignoring the weird bushing size, is hard, with the lack of meaningful information available
I’m not up for the challenge either
Changing to smaller rims with tall rubber [1/2 shorter overall] required spacers, which reduced body roll.
After some miles I could see the center of the tread wearing quickly at 20psi.
I settled at 10psi, the sidewall still doesn’t bulge, still slightly more wear in the center. I haven’t noticed any increased rolling resistance or decreased range.
The ride over cracks & patches in the road, much improved.
Much more of an improvement than new shocks
I’ll add more fuel to the dumpster fire.
Because of the way the early cars (99-2004)
Have a Swing arm style Front A-Arm. It’s critical that the Shock eye to eye or ride height is adjustable. If the eye to eye or ride height is off by 1/2 inch your front wheels will have neg camber 
So your right if someone wanting to waste thousands of dollars of getting into the Gem Suspension Market. It would be to their advantage to make 1 High Quality shock that was Super Adjustable so that it could adapt or be tuned to the various year/Modle gems that need it.
So yes a Shock that has adjustable Pre Load, $
Adjustable Reboud and dampening $ Adustable Ride Height. $ springs that can easily be swapped out for all different spring rates. That way people could mix and match to make a custom ride.
Back in my ATV days the shock manufacture “Works Suspension” would Build a Shock like what I’m describing for you. It needed lots of R&D
To be brought from concept to market. And by then I didn’t care about the early cars and was like “By Felicia” to the early cars! I’ll pay some pics of a Triple Rate (works Shock) with Remote Reservoirs. These are super adjustable. Each shock has 3 different spring rates that can be swapped out and the ride or weight the shock has to carry adjusted
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