B E N W E L L - S T E E R I N G . D A M P E R

How to make a team steering damper

We discovered very early on that excessive damping on the steering contributes to the category three wobbles that Ian documented in test report 014. Many riders remove the steering damper altogether, however this then causes cat. 2 wobbles. after exhaustive testing this is the best compromise we came up with.

Remove both O rings from the damper body. Cut a piece of silicone tubing exactly two millimeters long. Put a small amount of shock oil on the damper shaft and slide the piece of silicon tubing on.  then cut a piece of heat shrink wrap long enough to cover both O ring slots and the piece of silicon tubing on the shaft put the whole lot together, butt the silicon tubing up against the damper body and warm up the heat shrink to hold it in place. 

see diagram:

By covering up both slots with the heat shrink this has the effect of causing a small hydraulic lock using just the atmospheric pressure that is inside the damper.