Hot Rods Cowl Steering . . . just stop !

that looks cool
but I think I would want to add some kind of radius rod support

 

Thanks Rootie! The car is in Bill Smith's Speedway collection. Bob

 

that Chevrolet guy was smart.....except for walking away from his name and AC

 

i keep trying to explain it to my wife by telling her to get on the bed and i'll show you, but she still doesn't trust me after i used that gambit to explain toe-in

 

Pete; first of all, a BIG THANKS for the "lessons!"
Confirmed the way I built my "A" Tudor was reasonably correct.
(Not COWL steered!)

 

This is what the steering looks like when you've got a bigger budget than sense.

 

nice car

 

Thanks Pete. Please continue to share you wisdom. I still have Waite's 27.

 

Sidebar:
My understanding is that after Alfred P. Sloan added Louis' company to General Motors the two men disagreed about the type of vehicles Chevrolet would build and this lead to Mr. Chevrolet leaving.
-Dave

 

I realize this is off topic but I always thought Durant bought up Chevrolet then leveraged it all by buying up GM stock, I din't think Sloan had anything to do with on boarding Chevrolet. Didn't Sloan come in from New Departure after the Dupont's were running GM?

 

Just reread post#1. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and experience of 40 some odd years. Now back to the P&J catalog....……..

 

I'd forgotten the earlier history of Mr. Durant & Mr. Chevrolet forming the Chevrolet Motor Car Company. But, I still believe it was Mr. Sloan who wanted to use Chevrolet as the low price competitor to Ford. Louis Chevrolet wanted to build "better" cars than that and was forced out.
-Dave

 

Figured this photo needed to be added to this thread. I believe that is the Spencer '32 in front of the pack. Bob

 

No. And it's an A.

But someone was asking about early hot rod headlights. The first two at least both have Guides.

 

You are correct, I looked at the windshield and clipped frame horns, never looked at the cowl closely.


Bob

 

Wow......18 pages on bump steer ! So we all use 1920s technology and cry about bad handling.....go figure

 

Not sure what we are talking about is 1920s technology maybe more about how it is misunderstood, reconfigured and called correct.

It seems to many being a hotrodder involves ignoring correct geometry which was understood by the automakers and many in race long before the OP who also understands, raised this issue.

 

No, it's about not fucking up geometry that was correct to begin with.

 

It might not be a 32 but it certainly is a pretty cool non cowl steering group of interested parties which are welcome to listen in to what may have to be considered if they choose to modify...that's a great pic Bob.​

 

I took it off the Vintage shots from days gone by thread, it was posted by Ramblin Dan, sorry I forgot to give him credit when I posted it. Now we need Jimmy to ID all the cars.


Bob

 

Great thread with great examples (visuals) of bump steer. It took me hours read through all 18 pages of data & complaints!

My plan was to use cowl steering on my next project, but will definitely give it a second look. I'm pretty favorable to drag link style steering and it looks to be OK as long as I get the drag link connection to the pitman arm located near the locating point of the front hair pin with the frame! I still have plenty of time to figure that out though...

3blap.

 

Spoken like a guy who whose car handles like crap. FYI, not every hot rod has bad handling....

 

3W Larry Wonder what he would have said about all this.

 

Ask Bruce Meyers,current owner, how it handles...???????

 

I absolutely love how some folks think that The Laws of Physics are actually just The Friendly Suggestions of Physics.

 

...patiently waiting. I miss that guy.

 

Ok, so I thought I had it, but now I’m confused again. I was thinking post #126 was perfect.

Red arc being from end of wishbone to steering point
Black arc being from end of drag link/pitman arm to steering point.

These two arcs needed to be in the same plane to minimize bump steer.

In post #127, the black arc is not through the steering point....this has me scratching my head.

So does the black arc in 127 go from the end of the drag link to the mounting point of the spindle (the axle) and the red arc from the mounting point of the wishbone to the mounting point of the drag link (the steering arm)?

 

Yep. A societal sickness fostered by our dis-education system...what matters is what we want or what is kool or what everybody else says they want - not what is true, tested and/or provable...in other words - the antithesis of hot rodding

 

This is an interesting approach - using an intermediate bell crank to put the steering pivot in the right place. There is a lot of interesting stuff on this car -- it's pretty over the top.

View attachment 3960684

I think this needs to be more complex so we can really appreciate it.

 

In all 3 sketches, the red arc is associated with the wishbone; the black, with the drag link. You are correct, the black arc in the last sketch should have been drawn through the pivot point on the front of the drag link. The objective is obviously to get both arcs to coincide. If this were drawn full scale, you can measure the distance between the two arcs at, for example, 2 inches above the static intersection point, to give you an indication of the bump steer magnitude. (Note that a divergence between arcs of say 1", the actual angle through which the wheel turns depends on length of the steering arm; the shorter the steering arm, the more severe the bump steer will be. )