Technical Sorry for the stupid question.....

But this drives me crazy every time I see this. What is that lever that comes out from the side of some of the hot rods. I attached a picture with it circled.
I'm new to old school hot rods and still learning about them.

 

Cowl steering. Search on this site for that term.

 

So that's the steering box? No through firewall linkage?

 

'Pitman arm'. The rod going forward is called a 'Drag Link'. Connected to a 'Steering Arm'. Turn the steering wheel left, the drag link goes forward and the wheels turn left. Cool huh?

 

That is pretty F'in cool. One thing that kinda deterred me from building a 32 hot rod, is the way the steering shaft is all jammed together with the pedals, and I wanted a 5spd. So that would mean 3 pedals to deal with. This will take care of that problem. Guess I got no more excuses now.

 

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Nope. No steering column through the firewall. You do, however, have to build a rather sturdy mount, up under the dash, to accomodate the steering gearbox. The pitman shaft from the box then goes out through the side of the cowl, and the pitman arm get attached. from there, it's all downhill, or left/right, if you will.

 

Steering jammed with pedals,how so?Hot rods been built with original steering for ages.Cowl steering has been around also.Just takes a little more fab work.

 

From a lot of the hot rods I see at shows, it just seems like there is no foot room. Pedals seem squeezed together, then you got a shaft going through the middle of them. And most of them are automatics. I was starting to wonder if it was even possible to get a 3rd pedal in there.

 

It's tight, but it can be done. I am doing it now. Using a mechanical clutch linkage too.

 

The peddles were squeezed together or are. When these cars were built as size 10 boot was big.

 

My '32 has mostly stock pedal placement, and I can't wear big shoes when driving it.

 

Sprint car style.

 

Schroeder is the mfg making it for sprint cars

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Hutch's awesome build.


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I had no problem with three pedals in my 32, and I wear a 10 1/2 size shoe

 

Try 10 1/2 work boots in a stock "T"

 

Nice interior. But that does not look comfortable, my friend.

 

The only "Stupid" or "Dumb" question is the one you didn't ask!!! that was drilled into me by a former boss. He said that most of the accidents & injuries that happened were caused because someone who didn't understand was afraid to look "stupid"(or piss-off the instructor!!) & didn't ask for further explanation. One of the main reasons I like the HAMB so much is that I am able to either ask( or read someone else's Q & A to) similar questions!!

 

It is extremely comfortable for my 6'1 body. Lots of leg room, I can place my left foot off the clutch pedal just fine. Knees clear the wheel and shifter and the seat was made to fit me. What more could I ask for?

 

I've seen the cowl steering in a lot of hot rods and I actually didn't think it was going to be as involved as I'm noticing. I got in touch with Brookville (where I'll be getting body/chassis kit) and they said they don't offer anything for this. Some crazy excuse about liability .
Now I'm reading up on Schroeder Racing Products steering assemblies. They seem to have a nice system.

 

I had no issues with this 3 pedal set up in my coupe either

 

Looks like plenty room and clean also.

 

Here's a nice write up I found....
http://www.hotrod.com/articles/1004sr-cowl-steering-setup/

 

Why is there such a difference in the different applications? Is it the type of steering box? Is it the pedal assembly? Or is it a combination of both?
Only issue I foresee is that I'm going to run Lake style headers and I'm not sure if the drag link is going to interfere with the header.

 

It's cause different guys built them. These cars don't come with instruction sheets. There are myriad steering boxes available that will work or can be made to work for cowl steering. And I'm sure there is a way for you to fit cowl steering and lakester headers on the same car (like your first photo). But the result will probably need to be custom built, not off-the-rack.

 

Swanky! Very nice Don, I'd like to see more of this! If it's not "HAMB" friendly, feel free to pm me.

 

You come to figure out that quite often in these cars you have your driving shoes and then pack a pair of "walking shoes" as the comfy walk around the car show all day shoes sometimes don't fit well in the space available and the comfortable to drive in shoes often aren't worth a damn for walking in.
As the others said each cowl steering setup is a bit different and you have to fab or have someone fab some serious support for the steering gear to be safe. There are some good build threads on the Hamb with cowl steering though.

 

You have to plan it out if you want to use lake headers. Here's a Hilton coupe, you can see how close it is.


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Yup. I'm going with a Flathead.

 

Some people aren't very good at setting things up. Some are.

32 coupes are pretty big inside, yet I've seen some that would need the driver to be a crippled monkey to get behind the wheel. It baffles me, but there ya go. Just don't jump to conclusions based on what some people do.

The golden rule is to mock things up over and over - when you have all the parts - so you can work out spacial relationships. It's not paint by numbers.