Been thinking of getting one of these for my A but thought I'd check and see if any of you guys are running one? Any info would be great.
The only info i can give you is get one from a VW spe******t, same damper at a fraction of the cost, you just need to make the little bracket on the end! Sorry So Cal but the price difference on this one is m***ive. Kev.
I've had one on my car for three years now. Never drove the car without it so I can't say if it helps or not, but for 35 bucks it was cheap insurance.
I had one on a '46 Ford coupe, I sold it a couple of years ago. The damper was easy to mount, looked good and worked fine. $35. is a small investment to improve the handling.
Steering dampers will help if you are using bias ply tires or vintage wheels that are not perfectly true. (few are) Don'y expect it to cure worn out components, bent axles or incorrect alignment...L.B.
yeah, use the vw steering damper-same thing ! I bought one for 20 bucks and installed it in my girlfriends 36, the improvment was terrific ! Even thou the alignment was correct and perfect, the handling is much better now !
I started putting them on the cars we build several years ago. Even if the car drives alright, the dampner seems to make it smoother.
I agree that it is not a bad idea to have one. I installed one on my flatty powered 34' pickup and it drove just fine before but even better after.
i was told by old VW mechanic when the dampner went bad you would get wheel shimmy. they ran alot more caster .
helped out a lot on my dad's 32 5 window. he has a ford f-1 steering box which tends to have more bump steer than the cross steering of a vega or reversed corvair box. dampner was a huge improvement. just my 2 cents
I have both on my '42 Ford Pickup (bias ply tires and vitage wheels). The tire shop showed me how bad they both run out. The work fine up to about 70; after that my front end is doing the funky chicken. Will a steering damper really help?
I ran one on my 32 coupe.. Worked great and i never drove it without one so i cant tell ya if i needed one.. Ya buy the vdub one and then get the ends. What they are is tie rod end clamps so if someone can get us a part number on them we can forget socal... They definately have a corner on the market and a very high price. Dave
Just put one on my coupe after 10 years of driving (I have an f-100 box), Made a tremendous improvement. I give it a thumbs up!!
My old coupe had one on it when I got it. After a couple of years I took it off and didn't look back for about 10 years. Didn't make a bit of diff. The one on my old VW had to be replaced every two years. When it went to shimmying ya could tell. One day stuck my head out the window and looked at the front tire when it was doing it and it scared the hell out of me.
My coupe had shimmy real bad when I got it. I put a chrome socal damper on (I call 'em cross steer shocks), and boom! Problem solved. I highly recommend! Ben
I was getting an awful wobble at 60 65 mph on my sedan... because bias plys are not true.. and it made a world of differance... I will always use one...
This is a dumb question, but where does the damper go? I hear everybody likes having them, but never really noticed one on anybody's car before. Does it go between the tie rod and the front panhard bar or something? Anyone have a picture of one installed? Thanks
Here's how I hooked up mine. $17.00 VW damper. I used a tie rod end clamp with a hardened bolt and a spacer to attach to the tie rod and I drilled and tapped the inside of the radius rod for a heim end to mount the other end. I saved a few bucks over the So-Cal set up.
I disagree. I had all new parts on mine and I still had a wierd shimmy. Checked everything, aligned it, still had the same problem. Installed the dampner, problem went away. RV's have been using them for years on a larger scale.
I think them millions of Volkswagens had the steering set up correctly, but they used a damper. There were NO extra parts on VWs!.......OLDBEET
Quick search found this - http://www.autohausaz.com/search/product.aspx?sid=mgrwp355enm1cp2qp3shljjm&makeid=800026@VW&modelid=1351909@BEETLE%20&year=1964&cid=26@Steering%20System&gid=7412@Steering%20Damper Is it worth saving $15 (less than that if you buy from JimA!!!) and then have to spend time making the bracketry and hope it works properly? I don't think so. Give JimA the business and know that the engineering is already done. And that's prolly what I'm gonna do when my coupe is down for the winter. Vance
You make a lot of sense their Vance! Why buy a new '32 Ch***is for $2995- when you can get the raw steel for about $200-???
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