General Category > General Discussion

Friction Steering Damper

(1/5) > >>

wirespokes:
Has anyone taken apart one of the 70s steering dampers? I'm curious how they work. I've got one that does nothing so assume all of the friction material disappeared. There's the knob-section that screws into the anchored main body. Evidently something gets squished and expands, applying pressure to the rod, between the two. And at each end reside felt seals.

I ground off the 'retaining bumps' at the end of the rod and removed it to look inside. Is there a way to remove the threaded section? It would be nice to disassemble and replace the friction material.

There's been two views on steering dampers and I kind of feel they do have their place. In both of my crashes a good damper could have helped. Glancing off an Elk's butt at 60 caused one helluva tank slapper I
didn't recover from and resulted in flying off a 20ft embankment. Would have been nice if I could have steered the bike back onto the road, but there's no steering during a tank slapper.

Since I already have this old friction damper, I'd like to resurrect it rather than spend a hundred or two on a new hydraulic adjustable. Those new ones are cool, but not sure I need something that fancy.

PeteS:
I have one on my ‘76 LeMans. Its either on or off. They are useless. If your suspension is working and tires are not cupped you don’t need one even at triple digit speeds. If you want a steering damper replace it with a hydraulic one.

Pete

StuCorpe:
The friction type damper on my 03 died quite rapidly after putting the sidecar on.  Would not recommend another of the same type, hydraulic seems to be better with longer lifespan.

wirespokes:
I got the body apart. With the body clamped in the vise I was able to unscrew the section with the 24mm nut. It didn't come easy, but not horrible either.

It looks like there was some sort of friction material in there that gets compressed - now all gone. I'll look around for something to use in there that might work.

There are hydraulic dampers on ebay for $30. Are they any good? What's the least I could spend for a decent one?

Very true about tires in good shape.

faffi:
Friction dampers work opposit to what is needed; static friction make it hard to make small corrections, make straight line riding more difficult, but once static friction is broken, damping decreases just when it is needed to stiffen. Go with a quality hydraulic damper with low initial stiction and finely tuneable damping - if you want a damper in the first place.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page