Hot Rods Cowl Steering . . . just stop !

Through the '30's cars had overly stiff springs, lousy shocks, no antiroll bars, sketchy geometry, skinny tires, and were driven at half the speeds of today's cars, over crappy roads. There were few "better" cars for comparison. The factory engineers didn't always "get it right"- they didn't understand bump steer until the mid '50's. Ford's first independent front end in '49 had terrible bump steer, Chev's '40 independent front end was no better. We now have the engineering knowledge and the parts to vastly improve these early suspensions, if we make the effort. Do the homework, and build a decent handling car that still goes in a straight line if you hit a bump or a pothole. "Traditional" doesn't have to be dangerous.

Thank you, Mister Eastwood, for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience with us all, and for having the patience to suffer the fools graciously. Everyone should be required to read every one of Pete Eastwood's posts and watch HotRodWorks' animations on page nine before posting...

 

With the drag link and hairpin equal lengths and parallel, you have come as close as possible to eliminating bumpsteer with cowl steering. I hope Pete comments on my assumption.

 

WOW ! So, how much dinero do you owe Pete ? LOL.

 

Just looking at your setup, I see buku bumpsteer. Think about the different arcs each piece of the linkage will take. Short arc for the drag link and a swooping slow arc for the hairpin. The parallelism will go out the window at each bump.

 

The "axe" comment might have come from how you chopped the frame in half on Tom Prufer's coupe ! LOL. Please publish that little story when the bumpsteer argument is finished. I believe "Cyclone" Kevin might have told me a bit about that.

 

My Dad's Roadster that he built. Obviously not cowl steering, but a very good example of understanding steering geometry theory and trying to achieve zero bump-steer. This happens to be a 49-54 Chev truck steering box.

 

And that, is as close to ideal as you can get, with side-steer.

 

yup

 

Nicely done.
Looks like a Chevy II 4 banger?

 

292 Six!

 

I should have known by the motor mount position and the bypass hose.
I'm putting a 292 in my '40 Chev coupe.

 

This guy has an interesting method for checking/measuring bump steer.

 

British engineering at it's best! I'm a little biased though as my pops is one

 

I have to laugh at all the comments that essentially say "It's a Hot Rod, it's supposed to drive like that" - or some variation. That's just a way of covering up and making excuses for the fact that the car has poor engineering choices, drives like shit, and is somehow OK because "They aren't supposed to drive like regular cars".
I agree that many of the things that we do with Hot Rods are compromises to have a look, feel or sound - things like less than optimal ride, noise, Cold in the winter ~ Hot in the summer, etc. It's all part of the Hot Rod experience. But lousy steering and crappy brakes are not and need not be part of the equation. And writing it off by saying "It's a Hot Rod" is bull shit. I agree that a small amount of bump steer is not the end of the world, hell some new cars actually have a little bit, but not to the point of having to hold on and correct with both hands at every thing bigger than the BOTS Dot on the highway. I just can't understand why people would want to put up with crap like that.
A good freind had a '56 F-100 and installed a drop axle and screwed up the drag link angle by not bending the steering arm properly to match the drop. It had pretty evil bump steer. He shrugged it off saying "it's not that bad, you learn to correct for it". I built a 700+ HP 428 Cobra Jet for him and it hauled ass, making it even more of an issue. Sure as shit, one day he jumps on this thing hard and hits a reasonable sized pot hole and hit a lady who was taking her kids to school and was two lanes over! Fortunately no one was hurt, but it goes to show that no matter how much you Think you can deal with defying the laws of Physics, it can, and will catch up with you. After he got the new grille, fender, bumper and front apron, and paid for the Ford Probe's damage, he paid me to straighten the frame and correct the steering angles eliminating the bump steer. There's no excuse to put up with bad engineering that can jeopardize peoples lives - just because it Hasn't happened, doesn't mean it Can't happen.

 

Well said. And now for the rebuttals.

 

Well you see...one says "I'm here to party",....and the other says "Have you seen my new pocket protector? It's nifty!"

Just poking the bear, build it right.

 

Need help please we have a 1928 ford tudor speedway column u-joints mustang front end rack and pinion and a heim joint in the middle and when cool outside we can drive it with one finger when its gets hot outside its a 2 handed battle having to steer with small jerks steering gets tighter the hotter it is outside any wisdom from those with alot of experience we would be grateful..

 

Replacing it with a dropped straight axle front suspension and (Vega) cross-steering should fix your problem.

 

I know it is off topic, but it sounds like your rack is the problem.. Sorta like the 'morning sickness' racks from the 90's just in reverse.

 

Thanks for your time and opinion my main question is what or can cause the resistance when hot outside, logic points me to the heim joint swelling when hot outside. If it was a full time problem then i would consider a new set up but it works flawlessly when cool outside.

 

Thanks for your time and opinion my main question is what or can cause the resistance when hot outside, logic points me to the heim joint swelling when hot outside. If it was a full time problem then i would consider a new set up but it works flawlessly when cool outside.

 

There are many things that could cause this, it's impossible to even guess without more info and pics. I doubt it's a "heim joint swelling"...
Try to diagnose it in steps. When it gets hot and stiff, disconnect the steering shaft from the rack. Is the steering still tight?- problem's somewhere in the steering column/ shaft assembly. Loose?- reconnect the steering shaft to the rack, disconnect tie rod ends from the steering arms. Tight?- rack or rack mounting problem. Power or manual rack? If power, could be a hydraulic problem. Still loose? Problem is tie rod ends or ball joints.

 

First off, this isn’t a cowl steering set up.
Secondly it’s a M2 (OT)
Thirdly there’s no reference of power or manual.
Fourthly, if a few degrees of ambient air temp could possibly be responsible for such drastic changes in steering efforts then this problem is far beyond the capabilities of a message board.
Fifthly - obviously it’s not related to ambient air temps but since it’s OT it’s not worth our efforts to extract the proper info to at least frame the problem into a realistic diagnosis.
Sixthly - just drive it in the winter

 

I guess the steering is wrong, and it was chopped before TIG welding, a for real 30-31 Sedan Delivery. Bob

 

...such an awesome Hotrod that is...that has to be one of the most extreme angles posted within this thread...and we do know it's main purpose was to deliver the Bread 1/4 mile at a time......thanks for sharing that @The37Kid

Being a straight line Racer would this have been at all advantageous?...that is my question to those that know better than I...​

 

I see no advantage to having the cowl steering setup at such an extreme angle and placement.
It is always interesting to me to scrutinize these old photos to see what things were tried. Take the tight rear fender clearance for example. It is clear that that sedan delivery had virtually no shock / suspension travel, if, in fact, the rear end was suspended at all.
As far as chopping the top, I think it was mostly aesthetics. Sure it may have helped move the vehicle closer to the desired L/D ratio of about 6:1 and decrease frontal area but with the relatively slow speed and short time spent at terminal velocity it did little to aid performance. (He'd have been better off to just remove the spare tire wells in the front fenders.)
Interesting pic nonetheless.

 

Pretty sure that is just a steering shaft run out of the cowl down to a steering box to get around the massively set back engine (in a purpose built drag car) and not cowl steering.

 

But the shaft does not align with the C/L of the steering wheel. Maybe the two are connected with a chain-and-sprockets gizmo since the offset gear boxes were not available back then?

 

I have some understanding of this and have noted on top views of some center steer racers that the steering wheel and shaft are actually quite angled within the cabin. This may not be the case here but just an observation.