steering dampers

As some of you may have noticed I've been saying a damper is a needed part of XJ/MJ steering for a while now, in response to those chasing DW and their online 'helpers' calling a damper a band-aid. So here's my story.

My Comanche is 2WD with manual steering and small tires and a fair amount of weight over the front axle. It's low, the engine's oil pan precluded use of a damper in the stock location, so it didn't have one. After I got it put back together earlier this year I couldn't drive it over 30 without getting vicious wobble. Checked things over and sure enough, loose track bar axle end bolt. Tightened it, a lot better, but still there. Moved caster up and down to no avail, set toe, balanced tires, etc. Keep in mind I do this stuff for a living and I wanted to just put a damper on it a long time ago, but I kept chasing after all the small possible loose ends just to give the damper haters on the forum the benefit of the doubt.

The best it got was mostly wobble-free with a few steering wheel oscillations at about 40, worst when triggered by the left wheel. One road in town would still trigger full on, nuke the brakes death wobble. That's the road that leads to the house I just moved to, so time to fix this thing.

Picked up an RS5000 damper and CJ-style mount kit today and installed it at work. Wow. Should have done this a very long time ago. No hint of shimmy, shake, oscillation or wheel fight over bumps. Even the dreaded road to my house has been tamed completely. If this is a band-aid, I like 'em. :yelclap:

So, no, I'm still not saying a damper is a cure-all or substitute for fixing busted or loose stuff. But they can't be overlooked while chasing down a shimmy-free ride.

(and if your particular combination of wheel offset and tire size, control arm bushing durometer, etc etc has you shimmy-free with no damper, that's great, and I'm sure we'll hear from you shortly)

Same experience I had on my first OTK steering setup (still inverted Y). Didn't have DW before the upgrade, but with all new steering components, DOM tube..... and perfect angles, I wound up with very predictable DW at 45mph....without a dampner. I slapped the damper on and the DW disappeared completely. Might be relative to the Y style steering, but it's not happy without a dampener.

I chose to run one on my new setup and haven't had a DW issue.....bandaid or not, it's a pretty simple solution to avoid a scary situation.

I have zero problems with using a steering damper.

Early this year I switched to a crossover steering configuration. Just about 3 months later I started to develop bump steer and eventually death wobble. I originally had steering that was perfect without a steering damper. It was my intention to run a month or two until warmer weather and then custom fit a damper.

The BS/DW beat me to it. After a number of troubleshooting attempts, I finally decided to finish making my custom brackets so I could mount a steering damper. Once done I was able to safely drive my XJ again. I continued to research what could be the culprit. Recently I discovered what the root of all my troubles were. My trackbar bracket on the frame had come loose. Two of the four bolts had worked loose. Unfortunately the two tat came loose were the hardest to see and check. So it took some time for them to become readily apparent. Once I fixed that problem my steering returned to its original rock solid ride.

For me the steering damper bought me time to keep troubleshooting the real culprit. Now that I have found that problem, hopefully it will minimize wear and tear on other components. Another point is that in my FSM, checking/replacing the steering damper is a step in troubleshooting for death wobble.

yes a steering dampener gets some of the shake out but is most likely not THE problem. I have a worn out Rancho dampner i keep it on whether i think it helps or not. the problem arises when you wear it out do you get the wobble again? most people have MANY problems with their steering and they think a damper will fix it. Put on a new problem fixed.... no. If your going through dampeners like gatorade youll always be putting a new one on. If it fixes it fine if it wears it out quick look over the steering again there has to be a cause.

XJEEPER said:

.....bandaid or not, it's a pretty simple solution to avoid a scary situation.

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Agreed. Had a very bad case of DW after my lift. Checked over every friggin component on the front end, and got about 3 other people to look at it and give their opinions, all of which were in agreement that everything else was fine. Slapped a Skyjacker HD Damper on and have had zero problems ever since.

When all else fails, replace the damper. They're not that expensive and can make a huge difference. For all those who scream "thats just covering the problem" or "Dampers are not needed".....well if they're not needed, why is there one on there from the factory?

95meangreen said:

yes a steering dampener gets some of the shake out but is most likely not THE problem. I have a worn out Rancho dampner i keep it on whether i think it helps or not. the problem arises when you wear it out do you get the wobble again? most people have MANY problems with their steering and they think a damper will fix it. Put on a new problem fixed.... no. If your going through dampeners like gatorade youll always be putting a new one on. If it fixes it fine if it wears it out quick look over the steering again there has to be a cause.

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yep, if it wears out in short order it's working real hard to hide a problem. I see this on newer Ford trucks all the time. Track bar ball joint wears out but they don't get DW until the damper gets soft from getting overstressed.

Sometimes, though, you need one no matter how good all the other parts are. I bet I could change the scrub radius on my truck with wider wheels and it would no longer need the damper. But I don't want to do that, so the damper's needed to tune the suspension as it sits.

Simply put, "death wobble" is an oscillating front steering system; a system that includes all suspension parts.
The oscillation occurs when components in the system become unbalanced--as an example, the caster and or camber in one wheel randomly does not parallel the other wheel. Such a condition could be caused by bad ball joints, or possibly a bent axle housing. The tires may track true until an input in the form of a bump causes one wheel to drive the other to the side, which would be opposed by the drag link, causing the body to move opposite the wheels. This, in turn, results in the track bar opposing the body movement over the axle, inputting yet, another force in the opposite direction. With the right combination of imbalances, we then get a condition of "positive" feedback--remember, for every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction. This reactive energy supplies the means for the steering system to continue oscillating, until the positive feed back is removed--or dampened--hence the "correction" of death wobble by installing the steering dampener.. In a perfect world, the steering system would always be in balance. Since the world is not perfect, I won't begrudge those that need a steering dampener to "dampen" out in the imbalances; if it were me, however, I'd polish that turd until it behaved.:eyes: