Steering Damper

Hi All,

I am having trouble locating a return to centre steering damper in the uk, can anyone advise me were I may be able to purchase one.

In anticipation Martinm

Hi Martin.

I bought a terrafirma one designed for a defender which fits pretty well using some home made brackets and does what it says on the tin. Damper/spring setup was about £65 i think from ebay. Model TF835.

I have taken it off recently however and havent felt the need to put it back on yet. The return to centre spring is a bit odd at first as it will centre even when not moving and all a damper really does is mask another problem on the car (i.e. worn kingpins/wheel bearings/steering rods/panhard, etc)

Assuming you simply want a damper, at what point in the potential suspension modification chain do you need a RTC damper?

I only ask out of interest as I have a standard (LR Defender) damper on my unmodified GEN3 and the steering is just fine, no need for RTC assistance.

Is it tyre size or lift that make the difference, anyone know?

Rtc is of debatable importance on a Jimny even a big one with huge tyres. A better solution is to size the wheels and tyres so they don't drastically screw up the scrub radius, that way the tyres don't offer more resistance than necessary. It's not impossible to have big tyres and nice light steering.

l've got an RTC steering damper on my Defender 110 and it's an improvement for road use as it makes the steering self centre better.

lt also improves matters on the motorway, with no need for constant steering correction.

Off road l can't really tell any difference, but l only have the standard wheels and tyres.
The Defender 110 is a large and heavy vehicle.

Not sure it would be needed at all on a Jimny, unless you are running monster wheels/tyres on it.

lightning wrote: l've got an RTC steering damper on my Defender 110 and it's an improvement for road use as it makes the steering self centre better.

lt also improves matters on the motorway, with no need for constant steering correction.

Off road l can't really tell any difference, but l only have the standard wheels and tyres.
The Defender 110 is a large and heavy vehicle.

Not sure it would be needed at all on a Jimny, unless you are running monster wheels/tyres on it.

Not wanting to sound confrontational. But I think there might be something wrong with your Defender if a return to centre steering damper makes it drive better on the motorway.

I suspect you have a more serious issue to address, that the damper is simply hiding. Else if it was that simple to change motorway behaviour, Land Rover would have fitted return to centre dampers on factory models. And they never did. Not even on the more road biased Discovery and Range Rover offerings, which all use essentially the same steering setup.

Nope, it's all good.

New genuine Puma springs and Terrafirma adjustable dampers, new swivel balls and swivel preload adjusted, new tyres on genuine LR boost alloys, new radius arm bushes, new ARB bushes, everything else checked.

lt drives fine without the RTC steering damper, l just find it better with one for road use. l prefer the increased self centre on the steering mainly.

On the motorway it's fine either way but again seems like less effort is needed to keep it in the same lane.

Without the RTC steering damper it still self centres, just not as well.

This is particularly noticeable on the extensive urban driving that l do, which involves much turning and reversing on to customers drives.

lt's just personal preference l guess. l've done around 70,000 miles in the Defender and nothing's changed. l imagine the RTC steering damper would be detrimental during off road driving, which is why LR didn't fit one.

There's lots of things Land Rover could have done to make Defender better, but they didn't do it. Also it was never really designed for use as a car.