Steering Damper?

I replaced my dampener with a return to centre one from Tough dog ,it was well worth it as it took the harsh spin out of the steering wheel if I hit a pot hole at speed , the overall steering performance was better with a new one fitted I had done 175000km at the time 99 GU Patrol 4.2 TD
Peter York 4x4

I replaced the original one on my 80 series with an Old Man Emu one. It made one hell of a difference to wheel wobble/balance felt through the steering wheel. Wish I had fitted it years earlier.

As the 80 had power steering, there was no other noticeable effect. I never had the misfortune to have the wheel ripped from my hands when hitting an obstacle, but it is more likley the power steering rather than the dampener was responsible for stopping this.

Cheers

Mark

It's main function is to endeavour in the control of bump steer and reduce the risk of the steering wheel being ripped violently from a loose grip. It doesn't however perform miracles.

Hi,
Dampers usually get a flat spot in them, probably this is the position they do the most work. My cruiser hasn't got power steering and I didn't notice any difference when I put a new damper on. Admittedly it was the cheapest I could buy (ACDelco) but I couldn't imagine the resistance being anymore in an expensive one as too much damping resistance would make the steering difficult. Perhaps the others are dearer because they take longer to wear out or perhaps because of the pretty yellow paint?
Any way when I get a wheel stuck in a hole at times the wheel still spins fast enough to rip my thumbs off if I had em in the spokes.
Paul

I tell you what you don't want to happen, as happened to me, and that is the eye on the end of the (Toyota) steering damper breaking off. Its very very scary. Luckily the car ( troopcarrier) was travelling slow at the time. Its like the front wheels assumed they cannot make up their mind which way to point and so rapidly and violently change direction. I only just managed to pull over to the road side on a quiet suburban street. Had that happened at freeway speeds I'd been history.

After stopping I quickly realised what had happened and managed to drive the few kilometers to the ARB shop very slowly. Any speed over 20k and she'd start bucking. I now realise that steering dampers play a vital role on big 4WD's :-)

Klaus

I put a new 4-Ways Return To Centre damper on my 3 year old T/D Patrol a couple of months ago. It certainly took away a little shimmy I had in the steering at about 80kph. With the spring in place, before I fitted it to the truck, I couldn't manually push or pull it from it's resting location. The Nissan one I took off still felt like it has a bit of resistence, but I could push it in and out reasonably easily.
I very pleased with the 4-Ways unit.
Cheers,
Roachie