[High On Octane]

OK, you should be fine.  That's kind of what I thought you were talking about but wanted to make sure.  That type of movement is normal, and isn't really slop. You should be good to go.  Don't forget to play around with the damping adjustments to get it just right.  Ideally you'll want a happy medium of stiffness without having to work the handle bars.

What brand damper is that and where did you source it from?  I need one for my '59 Bonneville Chief and have been looking at the Chinese ones on ebay.

Scottie J

[Craig McClure]

Just curious: why would you need a damper?

At one time all larger British bikes came with a friction damper knob on top of the fork spindle. This could be tightened up a lot for sidecar use (all sidecar rigs shake their head at about 20mph) or it could be tightened slightly for higher speed cruising. Bikes felt very stable at speed with just a wee bit of drag dialed into the steering. Bikes haven't had them since the 1970's, but Hydraulic Dampers have been sold as accessories since then, they are not usually adjustable. If you ever had/experienced the benefit a friction damper, you would probably miss it as much as I do.

[ace.cafe]

In the older C5, where stability was a known issue, I think the steering damper could be a useful accessory.
Less so, in on later ones with corrected geometry, or the other models with frames derived from the previous models such as G5 or B5.
The Iron Barrel models had plenty of trail, and they are rock solid all the way up to as fast as they can go, which has been up to 130 mph on certain racing Bullets. No need for a damper on them.

[High On Octane]

For LSR at Bonneville steering dampers are MANDATORY.

Scottie J

[ace.cafe]

For LSR at Bonneville steering dampers are MANDATORY.

Scottie J

Yes, many sanctioning bodies dealing with wide ranging makes and models will have rules like that, under the "general safety" rules category. Nothing wrong with that. It won't hurt to have it on there.

[gashousegorilla]

  With the geometry of the older bikes, the chassis set up is more sensitive to oscillation, if not set up right.... If it's not, I have found adding a damper had little to no effect.  At least on my bike, when I had a problem.  I currently do not have a damper on the bike.

[Roeland]

Scottie J,

The steering damper was ordered on e-bay from Korea (if I'm not mistaken) for about 50$ the front bracket I manufactured from some stainless steel welded together and the rear is mounted on a standard stainless steel pipe clamp.