RTC Steering Dampers

[clivelm]

G'day all. I was wondering how many of you are using return to centre steering dampers on your patrols and what's your opinion on them?
Cheers
Clive

[healy]

I had tough dog one on the GU seemed fine worked well then I had one on the GQ and made the steering all heavy and felt like I was driving with a lokka all the time thats my experience hope that helps

[chrisc2306]

I've got a tough dog RTC on my GQ and I really like it I would definitely recommend it!

[Bloodyaussie]

Had one on my hilux to help with no power steering but on the patrols I am not a fan.... I prefer my heavy duty adjustable tough dog.

[nissannewby]

Rtc are rubbish in my experience. The way all your suspension and steering is setup it should return to centre anyway. The spring on these things can put added strain when steering as you have to compress that spring then they can also over travel on there return to centre and cause wobbles.

The standard type work well and the adjustable type mentioned above are quite good also.

Is your patrol lifted at all? Are all suspension components still standard?

[04OFF]

Ive also heard, you can go offroading and knock out your wheel alignment, a RTC may hide a problem ,e.g. instead of the steering wheel going off centre/pulling due to a problem, with a RTC, the first thing you may notice is the abnormal wearing on your tyres , by then its too late.


RTCs look cool tho, but I think that's as far as they go for me :p

[clivelm]

Hi NissanNewby.
I am currently putting in a 2 inch lift.

[93patrol]

i have a RTC tough dog and i have bent one of my steering arms (still to be fixed) the steering whell is off centre because of it with a front lokka its makes the steering twice as heavy than normal and can get quite tiring if your doing lots of turning in 4wd because your fighting it the whole time and i think it puts alot of strain on your power steering pump, when i can afford it i might give it the flick

[OldMav]

RTC or a spring fitted to your steering dampener is not a wise idea besides making the steering unnecessarily heaver to turn it also places unnecessary loads on the steering components. I really cannot see the logic in fitting one of these things, there is really no reason or advantage to fit one of these things ever. Many suspension workshops fit them to mask incorrect geometry mainly not enough caster, then camber is not ideal due to the relationship of a beam axle with these bits being fixed so the only way to adjust these items is to roll the diff to a point that gives a good compromise between all 3 geometry settings, caster ,camber and king pin inclination. There is no way you can fit a set of lifted springs and fit the proposed caster correction plates and or drop boxes and expect the geometry to be correct. You have to measure this geometry to know for sure.

[clivelm]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I think I'm going to steer away from the RTC dampers.

[OldMav]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I think I'm going to steer away from the RTC dampers.

Excellent idea, money you just save for something that's worthwhile..

[Marmel]

I was considering one of these, good info to know cheers.