Where to mount steering damper?

[salty_monk]

No it's not known for this behaviour.... It's long wheel base & heavy enough to generally not need a damper.

Damper is mostly for race applications on our bikes although it can add a margin of safety for the street too.

I would bet your bearings are either too tight or dry & rusting or a combination of both...

[jwhelan65]

You can see the tail of the tie strap right at the top of the travel. Most of that is from aggressive braking. I could recheck my sag but the front is pretty firm.

Not to jack here but Jim that thing is a work of art! Nice pic!

[posplayr]

This might be right on time for me. What are the symptoms that require such a fix? I've noticed on my gs1000 that if I'm stationary and I twist the steering back and forth rapidly that's it's like a musical saw or something. This seems to translate to a little wobble with high speed cornering. Is this something that would correct my problem or should I be looking at other causes?

A steering damped is generally to protect against some unforeseen suspension input that initiates a wobble leading to a tank slapper. The damper keep the oscillation from building to a tank slapper.

As a general rule you should be able to tune your bike so that it is rock solid (to a limited speed) without the dampener.

From you brief discussion sounds like you might need to tighten/adjust the steering head as well as increase the rear spring rate.

I must reiterate that for a stock GS this will get you up to say 80-85 mph in hard curves at which point tire flex and frame flex will start to give a little wobble.

Lower profile wheels/tires stiffer swing arm with better shocks push the upper speed for comfort/stability significantly but again within limits.

Most stock GS's don't need a dampener and you certainly don't want to put one on to try to fix a known problem only for unexpected stuff.

Anyone else feel free to weigh in on this. I'm sure the racing requirement is there for the unexpected. Like taking a sudden lateral force to the front wheel which starts to initiate a wobble.

Got off track so a little tarty in posting this

[MassJosh]

My GS is stable, my Wing needs some help. I plan on taking the front end apart this winter. 105,000 Miles I think it is time. I get an aweful shake if I hit a bump just right or brake hard. Forget taking my hand off the bars. I have Progressive springs, new seals and a new head bearing. If it is still bad after that I will try and figure a way to fit a damper, almost impossible with soo much stuff around the steering.