Steering Damper Kits [Bosanek]

Bosanek (PM) wrote: Hello Dave! I see that you sell various steering damper kits in your ZookBOB Ebay shop.

They all appear to have the same brackets.

However, I haven't seen a picture of any of your kits when installed on a vehicle.

The thing is, most of the bracket solutions which I saw on the Internet do not take the angle of the damper when mounted into account, so that the damper does not "come" onto the bracket at the chassis rail (and especially onto the bracket at the tie rod) at a perpendicular angle. This causes the damper's bushes to get irregularly squeezed at those points.
I am afraid that this awkward mounting position degrades the longevity of those bushes, causing premature damper wear out.
Maybe it does not really matter in practice, but I hope that you understand my concern.

So, does your steering damper bracket set exhibit the same issue? I wonder why nobody makes properly angled steering damper brackets to take the mounting position angle into account.

Kind regards
Bosanek

Recently had this PM from Bosanek, and I thought it was easier to post here, for the attachment of photographs and for general discussion too...

My (ZookBOB) brackets are different, I make three types - onroad, offroad and HD offroad.

The onroad brackets are simple flat bars, the longer one that dangles down off the chassis having a fold in it for added strength, these come with an Armstrong damper.

Offroad brackets - these are 5mm steel plate and have two mounting holes for the damper at the chassis end, one for stock vehicles and one for lifted.

HD Offroad brackets - these are made out of a piece of steel channel, as based on my own experience I have bent a 5mm thick flat bar bracket offroad, and have three mounting holes on the chassis end.

When fitted -





- you can see that one end is attached to the steering bar quite close to the rod-end and the other end is attached to the chassis, so whatever amount of lift you have it's not going to affect the angle of the steering bar much as it's near the pivot point.

You can see with mine running a 5" suspension lift that I'm only using the middle hole in the chassis mounted bracket, so the chassis-end bushes of the steering damper are straight, and the end need the rod-end / pitman arm is running at a slight angle, but not much as it is that close to the pivot point...

I could slightly correct the issue by having the chassis end of the steering damper in the bottom mounting hole? But I don't see it as a problem...

So there shouldn't be too much concern about the angle of the bushings? If installed correctly...?

Dave (ZookBOB)

This is the one on my daily driver gold Jimny -





Where the bushes run straighter as the damper is in the bottom hole of the chassis bracket...

Hope that helps?

Just fitted a standard length but heavy duty front panhard rod this morning, and this photo shows the angle (or lack of) the steering dampers bushes (Bosanek)

Looks like a good design. I fitted the terrafirma damper a couple of years ago to my road going Jimny. I'm glad I did and it's still going strong.