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Disco 1 Steering Damper Relocation


Mark

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I asked a question a while ago about relocating the steering damper on my Disco: Steering Damper relocation Thread

I wanted to move it as I had managed to squash my existing damper coming down lane in wales. In the end this is how I did it:

At Billing this year, I aquired a set of sumo bars from QT, which are an ecellent product. They also sold me thier relocation kit, which I have to admit I was a little less than impressed with. There are two parts to the kit, the end which clamps onto the drag link, and has a mounting for a defender style Damper. This is essentially a lump of steel with a hole drilled in it and a slot cut in with a grinder. IMHS less than elegant.

The other item is a piece of box section cut at an angle, with a single hole in it - this is meant to be welded to the chassis. Again, not elegent, but certainly functional.

Since I already had a procomp steering damper for a disco (ie pins on both ends, rather than an eye and a pin) so I didn't want to go down the defender damper route, so needed to modify the drag link bracket to take a pin rather than an eye:

gallery_92_190_28648.jpg

The top pices is the bit I added on and is angled in two planes such that when the vehicle is travelling straight and on level ground the face of the bracket is at right angles to the damper to reduce the waer on the rubbers.

The Chassis end looks like this:

gallery_92_190_16068.jpg

Again, I modified the bracket to be angled similarly to the other end. Then it got welded to the chassis in a suitable position.

From the fron it all looks like this:

gallery_92_190_20260.jpg

It seems to work well, and keeps the damper out of harms way. I was a little disappointed with the relocation kit, as I had to do pretty much as much fabrication as if I were to make my own. I ended up using the kit, as I had it. Overall though a good modification. I did this along with changing the steering bars for sumo bars, putting new TRE's in, and replacing the drop arm.

Cheers

Mark

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looks much safer there than where LR put it.

does it limit the steering on droop at all? id assume not as its attached at the steering box end. just wondering as i remember a few zooks ive known loose a lot of lock to one side when a front wheel is drooping right down.

i must do that to mine at some point, but i cant weld :(

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry to take so long to reply andy!

No, it dosen't seem to limit droop or steering lock (There are plenty of other things doing that... ).

It is also worth noting that there are several bolt on kits which do the same thing, bolting through the holes in the chassis that would be used for a lhd steering box.

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just looked at the pics again Mark, just realised it wont affect droop/lock. just ordered the paddocks HD steering for mine - well i needed a boot floor anyway, i'll work something out to relocate my damper the same.

the problem i was thinking of on zooks is due to the damper being fitted the 'other' way round. so that attaches to the chassis next to the steering box & reaches down to the draglink. of course when the suspension droops the damper has to reach further with the zook fitting limiting left lock.

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  • 2 years later...

Hi … I am aware this post was made many years ago but I am planning on doing this conversion on my vehicle and have a question

I dont have the original mount on my chassis …. The one which would hold the Chassis damper bracket to the chassis (I believe it was ground away by the previous owner).

This one:

DSC05715.jpg

As a result I am looking at welding a mount onto the chassis to hold the shock. Basically I am planning on doing exactly whats shown/be done above.

NewPicture-7.png

Did you make the complete mount by yourself or by any chance is it a land rover part … If so could you tell me the part number?

Cheers

Tom

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Tom,

It's not a LR part - it came from QT when I bought the sumo bars. It is however nothing more than a bit of box section with a hole drilled in it, and the end cut off at a 45 degree angle. I think i modified the chassis end too to get it to sit at the right sort of angle, but it didn't come like that!

hth

Mark

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Ok … Thanks for you help

I only just worked out that the bracket is made out of a square section cut at an angle (Proving I have no imagination)

As I don’t have a steering damper I might look at QT’s 'Defender' Drag link Bracket and buy a defender Steering damper (Manly because it pivots instead having a rubber bush)

http://www.qtservices.co.uk/product.asp?id=2916

Cheers for your help and for originally posting this information

Tom

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