Steering damper

[Mikes2]

Has anyone experience of changing or adjusting the steering damper.

Since fitting new front tie rods, the steering is making loud clunks when turned lock to lock. Pretty sure the damper / moved when the bracket was lifted out the way to take the tie rods out.

Is it adjustable or is mine completey knacked. There seems to be a lot of movement where the nut/bolt go through the bracket.

All help appreciated.

[raymor]

Mike,

I just replaced mine last night and am heading up to Inverness today, so will be able to tell if it makes any improvements. Mine was leaking fluid badly, hence the change.

I'd had ther rod end loosened before and I may have put it back the wrong way but I sorted this last night.

Will post again tonight

[S2 Ant]

My dampner also makes a bit of a knock now, but are you sure its that thats making the noise in your car?

When i changed the tie rod ends not long after i was getting a clonk noise but it was the lock nuts on the bracket that hold on the steering arms had come lose, so that whole bracket was moving.

Get someone to move the steering whilst you take a look to double check.
I had to replace the new nuts i used again and its been ok since, but must have slightly damaged that dampner as when its fully out and starts to go back in it clunks a bit, looks like its been made to kink slightly.

They are about £60+vat from stealer by the way.

[S2 Ant]

Oh hang on, just re read your post....

There should be NO MOVEMENT AT ALL on any of those brackets, if there is movement on those 2 bolts that join the arms to the rack then they are loose!!! That will severely affect handling as the front wheels will have free movement without the steering wheel moving.

Get them done up tight ASAP!!! this is 99.9% the clunking your hearing.

Get the bolts done up as tight as possible, then do the nuts up after as tight as poss, the rack has a thread in so you have to do the bolts right up first so they are right thru

[WabTheKing]

just replaced mine due to the damper being knackered - this was causing floaty stearing all over the road, if its cluncking something is loose a knackered damper wont clunck

[raymor]

having replaced the damper has reduced the feedback I get from the road and there's no clunking (all balljoints had been replaced - but there was still clunking before damper).There was about a centimetre of play in the damper rod, but nothing at the rod eye/bracket.

cheers

[Mikes2]

The two locknuts are tight - overtight in fact. Spec is only 45Nm. It's the damper nut/bolt which seems to move around.

I've found a source for this part at 39 Euros if I need it but I'll try tightening the bracket at the top where the damper fits first.

[Mikes2]

Problem solved. Damper and rack were retightened to spec which stopped the damper from binding - the locknuts were too tight. Hope I never need to change the damper

The main source of problems was loose ball joint nuts on the passenger side. Car was only aligned 3 days ago so not a happy bunny.