22-02-2021, 10:40 PM
I'm just starting work on a little 2 seater special and I have a potential problem (and fix) with the steering - just interested in your opinions.
The car is using a wedge under the steering box to get the column to the desired angle. It seems well enough designed and all seems rigid and strong - the wedge is a steel fabrication and extends down the side of the chassis rail to incorporate the boss that supports the brake pedal as it goes through the chassis. This means (I think) that the brake pedal pivot bolt/boss is lower relative to the steering box drop arm than it would normally be in a standard car. In practice this means when the drag link is attached to the steering drop arm, there is a clearance issue - the end of the drag link catches on the brake pivot bolt. It can go past but it catches and obviously that's not acceptable. I've been thinking of a few "fixes" and the easiest and most obvious one appears to be to reverse the ball joint on the bottom of the drop arm so that the drag link sits outside the drop arm, rather than between the drop arm and the steering box (and brake pivot). I've checked clearances and the drag link doesn't look like it will catch on anything throughout the full movement of the steering. Is there a good reason why I shouldn't try this and is anyone already doing it this way? This is the drop arm/drag link/wedge area I'm talking about:
The car is using a wedge under the steering box to get the column to the desired angle. It seems well enough designed and all seems rigid and strong - the wedge is a steel fabrication and extends down the side of the chassis rail to incorporate the boss that supports the brake pedal as it goes through the chassis. This means (I think) that the brake pedal pivot bolt/boss is lower relative to the steering box drop arm than it would normally be in a standard car. In practice this means when the drag link is attached to the steering drop arm, there is a clearance issue - the end of the drag link catches on the brake pivot bolt. It can go past but it catches and obviously that's not acceptable. I've been thinking of a few "fixes" and the easiest and most obvious one appears to be to reverse the ball joint on the bottom of the drop arm so that the drag link sits outside the drop arm, rather than between the drop arm and the steering box (and brake pivot). I've checked clearances and the drag link doesn't look like it will catch on anything throughout the full movement of the steering. Is there a good reason why I shouldn't try this and is anyone already doing it this way? This is the drop arm/drag link/wedge area I'm talking about: