FF: Forks Hydraulic Steering Dampers

BigEd

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What exact lithium battery have you been using?
do you have photo of this installation?
Thank you
craig
Dear Craig,
The battery I use is a Shorai case size #1. It fits standing on its end in a dummy Exide battery case so one connector is at the top and one at the bottom. Not a problem, you just need to make the length of your leads to suit. It comes in 4 cranking amp capacities. I initially used one of the smaller capacity case size # 1 batteries which was fine. I later replaced it with one of the 270 CCA type to have a bit of extra capacity as an insurance when I removed the kick start. The bike is in bits at the moment and I have sorted out the gear cover to show where it needed machining. It is an early cover and the machining was minimal and could easily have been done by hand with a small grinder of the Dremel type. Some covers may need more material removing.

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Bill Thomas

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T.T. Said it might not be a good idea, To not fit the Hydraulic Damper, With the new setup ??.

I know what you mean Chris, A few years ago I rode my Special most, And with Norton Forks and disc Brakes
It was a different world, Pot Holes !, What Pot Holes :D .
 

brian gains

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what is a 'kawasaki type steering damper', year , model ?. i;m not familiar with hydraulic steering dampers but have been considering one so am trying to read around the subject to find pro's and cons, mostly with regard fitting and spec' that should be considered.
 

BigEd

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what is a 'kawasaki type steering damper', year , model ?. i;m not familiar with hydraulic steering dampers but have been considering one so am trying to read around the subject to find pro's and cons, mostly with regard fitting and spec' that should be considered.
The hydraulic damper I fitted quite a few years ago came from M & P. I think that Brian Chapman had one fitted to a Vincent that he rode up to Founders Day at Stanford Hall one year. I cut a plate out of some 1/4" dural plate fixed to the two holes in the Girdraulic bottom yoke and made a small angle bracket bolted to the front head bolts. You can see the damper at this link: M & P Kawasaki Style Steering Damper
When I fitted the concentric conversion I made a new plate for the bottom yoke.
Timetraveller does a steering damper kit to go with the concentric conversion that he supplies. He should be able to give you details. You might also try a forum search using "steering damper" with Timetraveller as the member.
A good article by Michael Barrett in Wikipedia with drawings here: Fitting Hydraulic Damper to a Comet
P.S. Re-reading the article, Michael makes a note that it is slightly different for a twin as the front head is offset 3/4" to the left. I made my head bracket to fit the two left-side head bolts on my Rapide. And a simple thing that can easily be missed is that the damper bolt on the fork plate should have a spacer so that when tightened it is free to rotate or you will have a really stiff "friction" damper. ;)
 

highbury731

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TT's hydraulic steering damper locates to the peg hole for the standard friction steering damper, so the installation is probably identical for twin and single
Paul
 

timetraveller

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Just to clarify; I do two models of steering damper which have very similar layouts. Both are intended to sit under the steering head and to lie across the bike, not for and aft as is commonly used with the Kawasaki type. The only modification to the bike to to tap out the 5/16" hole in the base of the original head lug which takes the anchor pin for the friction damper to 3/8£ BSF. This takes a specially made stainless steel bolt which holds the bracket which supports the damper body. One model is intended to be used with the modified steering heads. This is fastened into three M6 holes in the base of the new steering head. The other model is designed to be fitted to the original steering heads and uses the two holes which are in the front of the lower bracket on the steering head on early and later models. These are not drilled out on the middle years models and you have to have these holes if you wish to use my design. The other part of the original system used to fix the is model of steering damper is the cylinder which extends down through the original friction damper. They were designed to be as discrete as possible and are very robust. Either model costs £125 and that includes every nut, bolt, bracket, 'o' ring, damper etc. If anyone is interested then send me an email to enw07@btinternet.com and I will send you the full illustrated fitting instructions for either model.
 

timetraveller

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The top picture show the kit during prototyping. The second picture shows how it clears a crash bar and the third picture shows the kit off the bike as supplied. These photographs are all of the kit to fit the standard steering head. I am busy at the moment and if needed I will post more pictures of the kit on the JE steering stems.
 

Bill Thomas

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I took these photos for a friend the other day, Old Style Type.
 

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