Hot Rods Cowl Steering . . . just stop !

And we never landed on the moon...
Hmmm, I wonder what kind of steering the Lunar Rover had?

 

electric......like at least one custom from the early 60s

I proclaim this the first hot rod in space


"to boldly do burnouts where no man has done burnouts before"

 

It had OFF TOPIC steering .

 

cowl steering wont work in the vacuum of space

its science man .....science

 

Will there ever be bump steer in"zero G"?

 

No
Steers can not survive in a vacuum either

 

Good to see it was conforming to the local fender laws too,,

 

Does that lunar rover have moon hubcaps?

 

I got in trouble 6 months or so on Hamb for saying coul steering ruins the looks of a nicely built rod.

 

Opps cowl!

 

good - great tech post ruined by wise asses

 

Pete has done some of the coolest things on this planet ..........but not burnouts on the surface of the moon cool

 

On behalf of me and my entire band of wise asses I would like to sincerely appologise for ruining this thread.

 

Sounds like there is really no reason for cowl steering.

 

It is "one" way to solve the footroom issues on early cars with very large engines, when trying to find room for three pedals. (standard shift)

Usually these engines in a circa 1930 car that have a very narrow cowl area, also need a setback which brings a larger bellhousing/tunnel into the mix. There simply is no way to get a normal column up high enough where it goes through the toeboard, and not have your feet get tangled up at that lower column..

Some people even give up on having a standard trans, and use an A/T to get more room for that lower column foot area. Others use one of those chain drive boxes.

.

 

Another "benefit" is clearance for exhaust.

 

Frank's comment got me to thinking that there's no reason the output shaft from the steering box has to be horizontal. Depending on available room it can be angled down a bit, so that it exits the cowl at a lower point. If the pitman arm is then vertical it'll move in a more or less shallow cone rather than a flat plane, but I don't see that that is a problem.

The other way is a cowl-steering-type box with the output shaft running vertical just behind the firewall – depending on what lives below its bottom end – or angled slightly off vertical if necessary. I've investigated a lot of variations on that basic idea using a firewall-mounted rack and pinion. There are so many possibilities I can't make up my mind.

 

Anyone questioning this has lost sight of the basic fact that if you are on public roads its your duty to chose function over fashion. As a dumb kid I altered the Ackerman and ended up doing 80 in the wrong lane...yeah i'm still here but its not through lack of trying!! what must be annoying for educated people (especially Californians who've been doing this stuff since the beginning) is the loss of accurate information through emulation not actual research....for instance: this is o/t but I always thought that it was funny how so many trads love to recreate the "suicide" front suspension like it was just a fun nick name...lets weld a round tube to some thin metal, tack a plate on top, then at the very front of the plate put almost all the weight of an 800 p eng./trans combo ....ever seen a guy in a model T with a leather helmet and no roll bar do an endo face first into the ground after his frame rail dug in? me neither but some old timers have....The old timers really wanted to put skulls and cobwebs everywhere but their Moms wouldn't let them so instead they sat around making up cool names (for perfectly safe trends) like "suicide" and "bump-steer" for fun....

 

This is as close to a firewall mounted box as you can get. However, it only works with a four banger

 

I set up a '24 T with cowl steering for a number of reasons, most of which have been mentioned:
Had a variety of engines I wanted to try out, so a conventional Gemmer box (F-1 or F-100 types) would be intrusive to exhaust systems and some bell housings. Also, the familiar narrow foot well; Three pedals (throttle to the right, but brake & clutch were tight, even with VW pedal set!)
So...the cowl steering was like...'magic'. Until I applied the geometry.
I found an 'unhappy medium', and the 'T' handled like a hot rod. Demanded constant attention...

Tune in to Pete's broadcast: "Music to bump Steers to."

 

bump up so john can find this

 

My vintage dirt car had a 4 bar with cowl steering , straight tube axle with panhard bar , gear box was a 14:1 ratio . It got around the turns like it was glued to the track . When their set up right it's the best suspension out there !

 

But you only turned left!

 

I wonder, how many AMBR winners have had cowl steering? What keeps cars with less than optimum engineering in the running for the big show prizes? Gary

 

I appreciate the tech on this thread and agree with the geometry issues that most people don't follow when setting up cowl steering. However as we all know when building Hot Rods with large motors, exhaust, limited space etc. cowl type steering can be a logical solution for space restraints. Any pictures of cars with cowl steering type setups with correct geometry?

 

Nope . . .

 

even the venerable vern tardel got it wrong.

i tell you, my car is terrible. i haven't driven it yet and i know it's bad.

sometimes at night, it goes out all by itself. i know of at least three people that it's killed.

my car has killed more people than ted kennedy's car.

 

Sorry if this has been covered.. haven’t read every post but theoretically speaking if the drag link and wishbone are of the same length and parallel why wouldn’t that be a neutral (bump steer free) set up?.. if not is that because when the wishbone is split it forces the axle to twist when articulating? .. then from an engineering stand point 4 bars would work better? Thinking of cowl steering on a project.. thanks..

 

So to be clear then, the only time cowl steering is ok is with a 4 bar front suspension. Is that correct?