Return To Centre Steering Damper

[chriscolleman]

Anyone running one of these on their 80.

She tends to wander a little to the left when I leave the steering wheel unattended.
Not always, but most of the time.

Springs have a little sag on the left and wheel alignment is something I do myself.
Fairly wide tyres with a more rectangular contact patch doesn't help as well.

So I'd like to dial in the steering damper to give a nice straight out ride on the long stretches.

 

[Chas]

Anyone running one of these on their 80. She tends to wander a little to the left when I leave the steering wheel unattended. Not always, but most of the time..

My 80 just the same, it's a real PITA if you leave the wheel unattended when all you want to do is pop round the back and make a cuppa

 

[callum]

it may in part be due to your caster angle if you have a lift (and you've not already corrected it that is). some people seem to think its ok, but one persons ok is...

you probably want to solve any underlying problem/s before before resorting to one of these dampers, they shouldn't really be necessary.

 

[Chas]

Mines been raised and castor corrected, but still pulls gently to the left if I relax on the wheel, but I'm used to it now and it's not a problem.

 

[chriscolleman]

Mines been raised and castor corrected, but still pulls gently to the left if I relax on the wheel, but I'm used to it now and it's not a problem.

Mine has a small lift as well, in order to compensate for the winch and quite heavy ARB bar up front.

Measuring from bumpstops before and after the whole conversion only is a minor change.
Wheel alignment was checked out.

The underlining problem is probably the BFG 285/75R16 AT I'm running at the moment.
Probably a bit on the wide side as they tend to tramline a bit on the rutted roads.

Had the same problem with the gd300, so switched over to narrower tyres and problem solved.
As nobody seems to be interested in buying my BFGs I'll run them for another year or 2 before I scrap them and buy a set of 265/75r16 with a more roadbiased thread pattern.

In the mean time I'd like to try one of those RTC steering damper.

A citroen I used to drive had power steering that would come back to center even when standing still, great vehicle for long range travel. Didn't have 4x4 though.

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

The camber of the road will often give a slight pull so it might be worth checking if it's constant across a range of road surfaces before you make changes to the truck that may not help fix the road

 

[adrianr]

Agree with Jons point. Mine will run dead straight on a truly flat road, and on the motorways it pulls a bit to the left because of the camber, and wanders a bit in the ruts made by the bigger wagons.

 

[Chas]

I have noticed it's not always the same amount of 'pull' to the left so it probably the camber that is the problem and the fact I have wider tyres, Cooper STT 285's.

 

[chriscolleman]

The camber of the road will often give a slight pull so it might be worth checking if it's constant across a range of road surfaces before you make changes to the truck that may not help fix the road

Agreed some further investigation is required

 

[whereisgibson]

Ditto the camber. It's especially noticable if you hop over The Channel, as the drift switches sides!