OKA 4WD . com

Took the original damper off in preparation for fitting a new double acting unit.

New one is in the mail but I need to drive the OKA to Taree tomorrow. All bitumen roads, mostly 4 lane.

Any problems likely because of lack of steering damper?

(don't expect there to be any. None of the farm trucks I drove yonks ago had such luxuries)

Catch ya hangggggggggging on tightly

Pete

It will be an interesting experiment!

An owner of an OKA with a defunct steering damper did attend one of the WA rallies, after not having driven the vehicle for months. He reported a horror steering wobble at about 80km/h - but it was ok faster or slower, as I recall it.

Chances are those old farm trucks didn't spend much time on good roads at high speeds, so maybe you never got to see what might happen.

Those old trucks may not have been driven at high speed in an absolute sense, but they were driven as fast as they could go.

Might take it for a test drive first so I can put it back if necessary.

Be careful, it might seem ok but when you hit a bump or irregularity in the road surface it could get the death wobbles. that was my experience with the troopy anyway.

You might get violent wheel wobbles at certain speeds if you hit an object (like cattle grids or railway lines).

If this happens stamp on the brake pedal to dampen the oscillations.

Tony, the forces on the steering paraphernalia are very high during the 'death wobbles'. Given that the steering knuckles have been known to fail in normal use, a dose of the wobbles at 80km/h could possibly result in the most unwelcome result.

After mine went into a startling wobble I elected to go for a new steering damper and one of Paul Nott's beefed up knuckles.....

Cheers,

Paul

Tony,if you have well balanced tyres and the steering geomtry is within specs you shouln't have any probs,We had two Inters with Dana 60 and no dampers but you soon knew when a rim was full of mud or when you've lost a wheel wheight,do not keep your thumbs inside the steering wheel cose to the cross members and just take it easy.

cheers,joe

Thankfully it was a non event. Little bit of steering wheel wobble at around 60 but nothing else. Probably due to the excellent condition of the highway, but even in Taree - which has arguably the worst maintained roads in the state, plus railway lines - there were no problems.

Didn't go kerb-hopping just to see how far I could push it though.

Thanks for the info. Good to be forewarned, but even better when it turns out to be a non-event.