Damper oil question...

[mike1180]

You are correct Mike. More damping in good in most cases, up to a certain point. The front wheel has to be able to work in order to calm the bike once the wheels loose alignment with each other. The shake begins when the two wheels try to correct the alignment. If the damper is to stiff, the front wheel looses it's ability to auto correct and get the wheels back into alignment. If the shake becomes violent and the front wheel can't center itself due to excessive damping it can compound the problem. Think of it as if you over steer your car during a slide. We have all been guilty of that.

An adjustible steering damper is equally ineffective if it is not set properly. You can crank an Ohlins Adjustible damper down to tight as well as fill your stock damper with oil that is to heavy with the same results.

It's late and I'm beginning to babble! I have to hit the hay! Good Night all!

Thanks Tuf, that makes sense.
I also got the following from the article I quoted above:

Maintaining stability while providing a quick response to steering inputs is the basic tradeoff in designing the geometry of a front end. Thus, bikes that steer more quickly are more susceptible to wobble, as they operate closer to the borderline between stability and instability of the front end. Also, wobble stability can change with speed, and load. Variables such as wind gusting, vehicle speed and wheel rotation also affect wobble, and certain combinations of these variables can cause a dramatic loss of stability.
The problem with wobble is that it’s a very lightly damped mode. The only physical damping comes from friction in the steering head bearings, and the hysteresis of tires and other dynamic elements. This damping is very slight, thus quick-steering bikes require the use of an external steering damper.

I don't ride my bike on the track, and don't need super-quick steering for racing, so if I read the above correctly, my trade off for using a heavier setting (or weight of oil) is that I will loose some quickness in steering response, but I will gain in the overall stability or wobble correction.
I am going to try a different weight oil in the spring, as I have 1 spare OEM stabilizer, and I will try his test as he describes and see what difference it makes.

Thanks again for your input!

 

[Evil_keeps_me_young]

yes thanks all...