Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Workshop Note -Steering Damper

Ok Bob dont worry As soon as I can find time I'll test it (and the panhard rod).

Must admit I thought the same. My first impression of Mog four wheel ownership was the low geared steering with weak centering action, compared to the sensitive steering with strong centering action on our Mini at least, despite both having electric assistance.

You get used to it of course and steering bearings above and below plus regular greasing keep it light. Surely adding a damper though will only add back stiffness, in turn masking what centering action there is, i.e. less feel

Thank you Dave for your words. Now I understand.

About german cars: I know a guy who works at Scheffler-Continental in the suspension area... German Engineering is not allways the yellow of the egg.

René

That's one way of doing it.Hopefully has done the job. I fitted on to my Plus 8 using a kit from the Mog guy in Australia. Much less work.

My first experience of a steering damper was with a 105E Anglia in 1971. I had a ten year old Anglia with a bad engine. So I bought another basket case with a good engine, and stripped it down on the front garden. In fact it was the beginnings of my garden shed engineering. The second car had been fitted with a steering damper. 105E's were known for wobble. My car had quite bad wobble.
So I fitted the damper from the breaker car. It was a simple short telescopic unit with a U bolt on one end which attached to the steering arm. The other end bolted to the inner wing panel behind the front wheel. What surprised me was that not only did it eliminate wobble, but there was no change in steering effort or feel.

Morgans with Mulfab steering bearings don't need power steering in my opinion, but the sensitivity of roadsters so equipped is not to everyone's taste. Jays tried a damper on Nero and felt it didn't improve matters, so not only is it car dependant but it's owner dependant. I vaue Keith's advice, because he's dealing with Morgans every day and has years of experience, so if Keith thinks it gives an improvement then I'm very happy to give it a try, even though I agree it's counter intuitive.

Certainly jacked up in the garage there's no change in feel at the steering wheel, or by pulling on the tyre sidewalls lock to lock.

I'm looking forward to finding out!!

Thanks for explanation Dave. As you suggest the issue could be owner sensitive. Mine coming up to 4000 miles on the clock, is light although still without strong self centering action, leaving the handling pleasantly neutral. Certainly no wobble or sensitivity though, but who knows when it loosens further.

Dave, I tried a Mulfab damper on my S1 to try and cure the twitch & bump steer from the geometry of the original set-up on the S1's, unfortunately it didn't help

I think there are two points of interest.

1) changing a bearing to another bearing with nearly the same construction doesn't matter, no big difference. That's physical caused.

2) but as we can read in Dave W. book you lift the front a lot of millimeters. So you change the geometry of the front suspension. That's the point of interest. As you can see on motorbikes small changes in the frontfork change the driving dramatical.

And there is no eye on the special MOG construction, there are a lot points of friction. More or less friction or worn in the components show a difference on the road.

René

Glad I still have damper blades. I get a work out at low speed & no need for a damper.