My Disco has a mild tendancy to "bump-steer", ie: If I'm on the freeway and hit a rough patch of pavement or ruts in the road, the trucks steering will be upset and I have to correct...nothing serious but it's a little twitchy. Just wondering is this a normal quirk of the Disco or is my Steering damper shot? - There's no sign of leaking from the damper, but then my rear shocks don't leak either and they are definitely worn as they don't keep the bouncing under control and I would guess that could also be causing/adding to the bump-steer issue.

I just had four new tires installed with a 4 wheel alignment and that seems to have improved it some, but it's still there.

Also, since I got the truck 2 weeks ago, I've already had an independant Rover mechanic do a post-purchase vehicle inspection, and the dealer has just done a multi-point inspection prior to approving the extended Rover warranty I just bought. So given all that, I'm quite certain that all the tie-rods, ball joints and bushings are fine.

So is this just normal or is my steering damper in need of replacement?

 

Mine does it a bit too, depending on the size of the bump.

 

My truck was doing this, as well as jumping back and forth when climing dirt/rock roads bumpy from water runoff. It was bad, a new old man emu steering damper fixed it almost completely, new shocks would probably seal the deal. I'm going to redo the whole suspension in old man emu when I get back from Korea.

 

Install an Old Man Emu steering stabilizer and the world will come back to normal. This is pretty common and easy to correct.

 

Awesome! West Coast British have them for $65 - Thanks guys.

 

Ya, that's where I got mine. This is basic mechanics I guess, but I feel a need to throw this in.. be sure to torque the bolts with a good, click-style torque wrench.

 

Update:

West Coast British talked me out of the stabilizer. Said that they rarely ever see the stock one go bad and that a little bit of bump-steer is normal for the Disco. He also added that the OME stabilizer "makes them steer funny". They ought to know, they've been wrenching on Rovers for as long as Rovers have been in the U.S.

I figured that if he felt strongly enough about it to talk me out of giving him money he must know what he's talking about. but he did sell me 4 OME shocks and said they would be a big improvement because the stock ones are weak...mine certainly are.

 

Yep, I always torque em. The guy at WCB also said to use Anti-Seize on the threads.

 

Huh, go figure. The new damperfixed my problem with that, and there was nothing normal about the bump steering mine was doing. Mine was grabbing grooves in the road; almost slungme in to a guard-rail once.

Howevah, bump steering can be caused by poor shocks too, so the OME you just bought may make an improvement as well. Anti-seize seems sort of strange, I don't think I would want to use that. There is not exactly a lot of heat down there, and you can remove any of those bolts with a good breaker bar.