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Steering damper

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Hi,

Has anyone fitted an after market steering damper such as the Andover Norton one?

Was it a worthwhile mod?

The roads in Devon are very bumpy and I'm a weed :)

Thanks

Keith

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I fitted one to try and stop a high speed weave despite new swinging arm bushes, iso's, fork bushes, taper roller headstock bearings, tyres. the damper just delays the onset of weave until a higher speed. Then you reallly know about it. Issue is that I weigh 12 stone, two up no problem. also tyre pressures need to be much higher than the old haynes manual reccomend. Try 36 rear and 32 front or even more.

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Fitted one to my Mk 3 850 when I had it out in Kenya - tarmac road surfaces varied from OK to dreadful where you played russian roulette with potholes. Severe steering wobble at speed would occur if you went in one or hit some object , and even without that it would shake its head at a certain speed. The damper , an original NVT item I got from Carl Rosner back in the mid-80's , worked well curing the wobbles and shakes. It had about six different stiffness settings as I recall.

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I have used one for a long time and I am great believer in them. A damper is no substitute for setting up correctly your Commando but on my machine at least, it suppresses the steering twitch that occurs around 30 - 32 mph.

 


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