Steering Damper of Choice, and Availability?

[guzzler]

I can't send any photo's of mine I'm afraid.

My emails were hacked earlier in the year and although the geeks sorted the issue I have the side effect of not being able to transfer or send photos....

I need to get them back to address this but unfortunately have other things to do beforehand.

Also have 3 x tonne of wood that's just been dumped in my carport which needs to be moved and stacked this arvo before I can do anything but will take a closer look at my set-up and report back later.

Cheers Guzzler

[swooshdave]

On 8/16/2024 at 3:28 PM, Lucky Phil said:

My Ohlins and doccs shindy have 2 spherical bearings. One on the shaft and one on the male rod end bolted to the lower triple clamp. The question was if the Hyperpro has an additional spherical bearing fitted in the damper BODY clamp that attaches to the lower triple clamp rod end fitting the same as my Ohlins body clamp. Therefore you have a spherical bearing in the body fitting another one on the triple clamp fitting and another on the rod end 3 in all. If the Hyperpro damper body clamp fitting does have a spherical bearing fitted then you can't use the std lower triple clamp spherical bearing set up and need to either have a solid triple clamp fitting such as the one I made up OR replace the damper body spherical mount with a solid bush.

Phil 

From the pictures provided there’s nothing to indicate that the HyperPro is mounted any differently than the stock dampener. I’m not sure what you are seeing that would suggest otherwise.

[Lucky Phil]

1 hour ago, swooshdave said:

From the pictures provided there’s nothing to indicate that the HyperPro is mounted any differently than the stock dampener. I’m not sure what you are seeing that would suggest otherwise.

Because to me it looks like a spherical bearing was used in the damper clamp and I therefore asked the question and the response was "yes" and the the discussion went from there.

Phil

[swooshdave]

3 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

Because to me it looks like a spherical bearing was used in the damper clamp and I therefore asked the question and the response was "yes" and the the discussion went from there.

Phil

Technically there is a spherical bearing attached to the damper clamp.  It just happens to attach to the triple clamp.

But let's see if we can get @ChrisPDX for some more photos of the dampener mount to clear things up.

[guzzler]

On 8/15/2024 at 8:37 AM, docc said:

I am really trying to get my head around this. Here are three damper set-ups. What are we looking for here? And how to spot the fault?

My Shindy with basic Heim/Rose joints (like the factory set-up?):

@ChrisPDX's HyperPro:

@Lucky Phil's Öhlins with "solid fitting":

I am not understanding where the "spherical bearing" is or if my set-up might have this issue.

Thanks for the scrutineering.    

G'day folk's

I just checked my Hyperpro and it's exactly like ChrisPDX only mine sits flat like LP's where it attaches to the frame closest to the camera...

Cheers 

[audiomick]

My Hyperpro should be here in the next couple of days. I'll take some photos of it "out of the box" before I put it in. 

[Lucky Phil]

4 hours ago, audiomick said:

My Hyperpro should be here in the next couple of days. I'll take some photos of it "out of the box" before I put it in. 

That would be great. I'm only interested because I buy a lot of aftermarket stuff for the bikes and cars and find especially with the Guzzi because it's pretty old now a lot of aftermarket stuff isn't really suitable as in the wrong design to start with. Companies look to utilise something they already make for older machines to broaden their market and don't bother too much about the details. The Andreani cartridges were an example of this ( and a $200 loss to me) and so were the PVM wheels I bought for the bike. Can you believe their are literally hundreds of outlets on the internet still listing the Andreani carts as fitting all V11 Sports 1999-2006 even though the non fitting issue for the early bikes has been known about for 5 years! The wheels cost over $4000 and when I got them I had to disassemble them and re machine the bearing bushes because the front wheel brake callipers wouldn't fit. The rear disk carrier itself had over .2mm runout which required me re machining that as well. Probably why the German company that retailed the wheels no longer sells them. Because the world is full of reseller now with no idea and also people that CAD design stuff in their spare room and send the file to China for mass production trial fit it on their own car/bike, do no testing and then start selling on their website. I've also recently had issues with some car stuff I've bought and it's the same. 99% of people don't even realise the stuff they are buying is sub standard. Because it looks nice and it's "billet" then it must be good right? 

Phil

Edited August 18 by Lucky Phil

[audiomick]

Ok, here we go.

The Hyperpro steering damper arrived today. UPS is a bit of a pain in the arse, but that's another story.

The Hyperpro damper looks really well made, and it is quite pretty. A test by pushing the shaft through the damper slowly and suddenly faster indicates that the advertised "progressive" damping rate actually works. A good start.

The best thing about the new damper is this:

That number starting with KBA is the certification number that means I can legally use the damper here. The damper is made in the Netherlands, so it is no wonder that it has a German KBA number, but it is still good.

Here are two photos of the original damper and the new one. In the first one, they are lying with the "base" lined up to show the length of the shaft. The shaft on the Hyperpro is a bit shorter.

In the second one, they are actually lined up at the head, but the parallax caused by me not shooting straight makes it look like the aren't.

The point is, the bracket on the Bitubo is placed where the easily visible wear marks indicate that it was mounted there. The destructions provided with the Hyperpro stipulate 39 mm from the base end to the bracket, so I am convinced it will be able to be mounted.

 

The bad thing is, the mounting bracket does indeed have a ball joint. (Note, what looks black on the ball joint is actually chrome. I was using a flash on the camera, and shiny surfaces come out like that with a flash. Has something to do with physics, I think...)

Funnily enough, the more than adequate destructions sheet shows a drawing that is recognisably the original mount on the lower triple clamp. I'm starting to wonder if they disagree with Phil's assertation that one shouldn't put two ball joints "on top of each other". I believe @Lucky Phil entirely, what he wrote makes sense, but I think I want to bolt up the mount to the mount and see what really happens there.

Anyway, here's the destructions, and the provided screw, nut, washers and o-rings.

 

And the best thing of all is, you get stickers!!! I'll be plastering them all over the Le Mans for sure, wont I?

[audiomick]

1 minute ago, docc said:

@audiomick just added the HyperPro steering damper images to his Album in Gallery.

 

Give us a chance to finish writing the post, ya bugger.

Edited August 19 by audiomick

[docc]

3 minutes ago, audiomick said:

Give us a chance to finish writing the post, ya bugger.

Sorry, my man. I forgot you never sleep . . .

I am just now reading through your excellent post.

Thank you for the images and excellent feedback!

 

[edit: Took my premature post down.]

[guzzler]

Mate

Once you have it mounted and ride, you'll find it works fine......

No issues with mine. 

Cheers 

Ps I bought a shock at the same time and got HEAPS of stickers too! 

[audiomick]

14 minutes ago, guzzler said:

Once you have it mounted and ride, you'll find it works fine......

Yeah, I'm prepared to believe that. As I said, I'll probably bolt the mount up to the bracket on the triple clamp and see what really happens there.

Assuming @Lucky Phil is right, the next step will be to contact the manufacturer and see if they have a mount without the ball joint.

Failing that, as can be seen in the photo, the ball joint is apparently held in by a circlip (incidently, an external circlip in an internal application, but we'll leave that alone for now... ), so it shouldn't be too hard to get the ball joint out. If I can find someone who can turn up a bush for me, or find something to fit on the Interweb, that shouldn't be too hard to fix.

Edited August 19 by audiomick

[Lucky Phil]

Ok spherical bearing. When you bolt it up check to see if there is any rocking motion of the bearings mounted together that causes a small "dead zone" each side of centre. In other words does the clamp bolt tilt from side to side as you initiate steering movement from the centred position and delay slightly the stroke of the damper.

Phil

[docc]

1 minute ago, Lucky Phil said:

Ok spherical bearing. When you bolt it up check to see if there is any rocking motion of the bearings mounted together that causes a small "dead zone" each side of centre. In other words does the clamp bolt tilt from side to side as you initiate steering movement from the centred position and delay slightly the stroke of the damper.

Phil

This ^^^ (Well said.)

[audiomick]

12 minutes ago, Lucky Phil said:

... check to see if there is any rocking motion of the bearings mounted together that causes a small "dead zone" each side of centre...

Yeah, that's the plan.

It might take a few days, but I will report back. Going for the golden elephant stamp here.