Lansdowne - Dont

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Oct 5, 2015
Messages
40
Country flag
I bought a set of the Lansdowne dampers about a year ago. My bike has been a work in progress.

I finally got it on the ground today.

I'd emailed Don with a few questions in the past. His attitude was apparent from the beginning. I did my best to be nice. I was SUPER careful with these. TO give some background, I've been working on and racing tube frame GT cars with shocks worth more than the typical Norton for decades. I get paid to be flown to tracks all over the world to work on various racing cars.

Today, after several emails we discovered that one of the dampers had a poorly designed aspect fail. These have never left the garage. What I got was more attitude and told to fix it myself. To this point, I'd been super nice to try to defuse Don's attitude.

Honestly, life is too short to deal with broken shit and pain in the ass diva's like Don. I've asked for a refund. I'm sure he will refuse.

I just wanted this on the record, so others can see. I'm sure lots of folks will pig pile on and tell me how great Don and his dampers are. But I know what I saw.

-Kyle
 
"Honestly, life is too short to deal with broken shit and pain in the ass diva's like Don. I've asked for a refund. I'm sure he will refuse"
not quite sure who the diva is here ?
 
I think the post is fairly worthless unless there is a description of what failed.

The post has some worth if what failed is outlined and how it failed, that would be of benefit to the people who have these inserts be they John Bould (R.I.P) or Don Pender supplied.

Lansdowne - Dont


EDIT.
At this stage we will have to guess what happened.

I notice Don Pender fits the springs ? (John Bould did not) so that avoids any drama setting up the caps with the adjusters.

Please don't say it was an O-Ring but that would be unlikely, ... fail can be a lot of things including a metal part breaking or a simple rubber part failure.
I can't imagine what could break at installation or what could fail at adjustment of the rebound/compression hex's. (Unless they were excessively seated at the needle base)
 
Last edited:
To be honest if you only tell half a story and not tell what has failed then how are people going judge or know what you are trying to get out, I for one have had no problems with my Lansdowne inturnals but I got mine from John before his death, I have never brought anything off Don but he has a good reputation from others who have, so if your got sour grapes over a problem then you should be honest in what has happen and I think most on here would think the same way.

Ashley
 
Please don't say it was an O-Ring but that would be unlikely
I had an oring fail pretty much straight away, on one of JRB's. Tolerances.

But I didn't get my rebuild done until after Don took over and he supplied the size to refit one.

That said, shit does fail. I have had piss poor parts from quite a few suppliers, and most of them come right, if one can prove it is their liability.

Sometimes.
 
Not so fast, gentlemen, to discredit the OP.
The LD kit I bought from Madass is inoperative, rock solid compression action. So it appears the rebound side check valve isn’t working properly.
My attempts to get help have been unsuccessful.
I’d offer the current maker isn’t as intimately familiar with the subleties of design as JRB was.
I’ve resigned to fixing it myself, when TIME PERMITS.
Yes, stuff happens.
 
Fair enough. The tiny grub screws used to turn the adjusters are held with only a low strength wicking loctite (per Don).

They are tasked with moving the large diameter adjusters and their orings.

The loctite has failed on one side. Bear in mind it was failed when I started. I never had the chance to adjust it.

My emails with Don were awful. He’s dismissive and disrespectful.

He was bordering on telling me to never adjust these adjustable dampers. He knew this thing sucked. I’m not the first guy with this issue.

I’ve had several pms from other guys with issues with Don. This isn’t isolated.
 
Fair enough. The tiny grub screws used to turn the adjusters are held with only a low strength wicking loctite (per Don).

They are tasked with moving the large diameter adjusters and their orings.

The loctite has failed on one side. Bear in mind it was failed when I started. I never had the chance to adjust it.

My emails with Don were awful. He’s dismissive and disrespectful.

He was bordering on telling me to never adjust these adjustable dampers. He knew this thing sucked. I’m not the first guy with this issue.

I’ve had several pms from other guys with issues with Don. This isn’t isolated.


Would it be possible to broach the brass adjuster itself?
 
IMO, you're always better off arguing the problem with the part in question, rather than the behavior of the person making the part. If there's a flaw or a marginal design problem with the part, that's where the validity of your claim lies. At that point, you don't need to point the finger of blame if you proven there's a problem with the part. That finger gets pointed at the responsible vendor automatically.
 
IMO, you're always better off arguing the problem with the part in question, rather than the behavior of the person making the part. If there's a flaw or a marginal design problem with the part, that's where the validity of your claim lies. At that point, you don't need to point the finger of blame if you proven there's a problem with the part. That finger gets pointed at the responsible vendor automatically.

Perhaps the wisest thing ever posted on the internet. Granted the bar is low.
 
Well said.

Unfortunately in this case Don simply reacts badly to any input, well presented or not. I tried both.

The right thing for him to do was offer to fix them. They've been a PITA since I took them out of the box. He packs them so that the caps are RIGHT at the edge of the packaging. So if you cut the tape (as I did), you will scratch the AL caps. I had to polish those scratches out. No biggie, but a preventable PITA none the less. I politely suggested that he either label the box/tube or use some packing to prevent this and got my first dose of attitude. I polished out the scratches, and this was his justification for his bad customer service. That I had "messed with them" - meaning scratched them and polished out the scratch. He seems like he's hanging on by a thread and thus unable or unwilling to stand behind his product. Even when the fix might be a few minutes and some loctite. Yes, I can do the same. That's not the point. I don't expect to be made to fix brand new parts.

The brass adjusters could be changed to not use the tiny grub screw to move them. But I wanted a set of dampers, not a project. I have enough projects.

Oh, and he refused to accept them back immediately after I asked last night.

-Kyle
 
I got my set of dampers from the late and great JRB ... the set arrived at my door in a well padded box the dampers were enveloped in some type of medium thick plastic/pvc pipe .... the package would have survived a drop off back of truck no problem , would have been impossible to scratch while opening ... Don made up my wheels for me and they arrived as well packaged , few years ago now ....
 
I have always had great communication with @madass140 - I’ve bought a few bits off him, he’s always been up front, reasonable and very communicative.

We threw some ideas around together when he was experimenting with alternators, and I thought he was great to work with.

Don’t forget, he’s a community guy - making bits primarily for himself and some extras for us that he makes a few bucks on. My guess is enough to cover his costs and not a lot else, since his pricing is always so reasonable.

Give him a chance to respond please, rather than damning and slaying the poor guy publicly.

Thanks.
 
I recall a few years ago when some guy in San Francisco went ballistic publicly over some part he got from Don claiming it was misrepresented
and would not work for his application. This guy made a point of socially castigating Don for employing children to manufacture his stuff
in the Philippines and having them work for $1 a day. Of course he was just a disgruntled hot head looking for a fight. When he got nowhere
he put that same item up for sale on eBay describing it as fine/as new with no mention of it's suitability for the application or any fault in
manufacture.
 
Hey lazyeye, take your thinly veiled BS elsewhere. I dont appreciate the comparison. I've stuck to facts.
 
Last edited:
I've stuck to facts.


Kyle, No you have not... Facts about don are the second bounce of the ball. What is wrong with the product?

Forget about your dislike for Don's behavior. What exactly is wrong with the kit? If I had to guess from your previous posts, I'd say that you thought it was hard to adjust and a pain, but you didn't say that it didn't work. Other than that you scratched the face of the adjuster cutting open the package...

Did something come loose on them that should have been immobilized with loctite? Honestly, exactly what's the problem with the product? What part failed?
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top