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Solid Steering Rods - No Damper?

JimGNR

JimGNR

Trekker
I have a pair of solid steering rods, the track rod and drag link that I intend to fit to my Disco. The bars are solid and have new track rod ends but no provision for the steering damper to be fitted?

The advertising blurb says: "No steering damper required. The heavy steel takes stress off the ball joints. Rods and joints last longer."

Has anybody had experience of fitting such bars, is a steering damper really not needed or should I weld a bracket onto them before fitting?

The last thing I want is a wobbly, unsafe truck.
 
Sounds a bit back to front to me.
They are saying the steering damper is there to take strain off the track rod ends,but I thought the steering damper was to prevent shocks and kick back to the steering wheel.
 
JimGNR said:
The advertising blurb says: "No steering damper required. The heavy steel takes stress off the ball joints. Rods and joints last longer."
Click to expand...

So how do heavier items reduce stress on the bits they're attached to?
I can sort of understand the bit about not needing a damper though. Because the bars are heavier, they have more momentum (which applies even when they're stationary don't forget) so they'll need more of a whack to make them move unintentionally, and that's what the damper's there to prevent normally.
That said, any impact across the steering has to be felt somewhere. I suspect track rod ends would suffer.
 
Well I have fitted them tonight so I will report back tomorrow how they feel. If it feels OK I will get the tracking done, if not, I shall be fitting the originals back on.
 
Scary!!

Well the drive to work was....erm exhilerating.:eek: Lovely and smooth on the main roads but on the country roads, drive over a pothole or bump and the steering wheel shakes uncontrollably, dangerous in fact and no matter if you slow down or speed up it keeps oscillating.

So back to the orignal steering rods later but I will fit new track rod ends whilst it's off.

Thinking about it though, I have tried fitting a new steering damper in the past, whenever I fitted a new one, and I tried several makes, I got the same problems.
 
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