Hi I have an old front engine dragster , however I have a steering issue where the butterfly steering wheel is hard to turn in one direction and it wants to turn back when I let go as where if I turn the butterfly steering wheel the other direction it's fine? This is at a stand still as well as rolling? It has a torsion tube front end that attaches to my chrome drop axle, it's a 64 shubeck dragster, any help would b great, I know there's plenty of old schoolers on here that can help Thx guys U can see the pic in my avitar it's the most common style front end to the era
Sounds to me like the axle might be bent - in such a way that the caster on one spindle has been affected.
Sounds like you may have a seized rod end that's making it bind up. I'd check every part of the steering system, and the king pins.
Yes I've checked everything even took torsion tube apart lubed a re-installed it looked good, I've used scales and it looks like more weight is on the one side than the other and the scales proof it soon as I turn the wheels weights are different?. That may explain it better Thx guys any tips are great at this point Thx r
Look at all the tubing, and welds for cracks, may need to put it on a chassis jig to make sure the chassis isn't tweaked.
A lot of builders put preload on the left front. I've had many old dragsters that the rolling chassis without motor would have the right front 2" in the air. A lot of these cars had steering rebound that was more on one side than the other. I would try putting the car on stands, under the axles. start at either end and hunt down the point that the rebound starts at. You may be able to re adjust the torsion arms. My old cars always wanted to go left easy but hard right.
Might shoot Rooman a p.m. He might have an idea or two but it sounds like you are getting plenty of good advice already.
As it is a '64 car it most likely has a lot of caster and that will cause the front wheel loading to vary as the wheels turn. With the king pin to ground intersection point so far in front of the wheel turning to the left will have a tendency to push the axle up while the load will be reduced on the right side as the wheel raises up. This is normal for any front end with more than a little caster and your car most likely has at least 30 degrees. That said the effect should be the same either side of center. I presume that the drag link is connected directly to the left spindle steering arm and that may be part of your problem if the car has more than 30 degrees caster. In that case a lot of the force in the drag link is pushing down on the spindle/king pin rather than trying to rotate it around the boss. Is the steering harder when trying to turn left? Some close up photos might help the diagnosis. Roo
You did not mention what steering box you had- ross, P&S, VW, rope and pulleys? If you have ever taken a ross or P&S box apart you will find that the scroll gear(the part that the steering wheel turns) is not symetrical so the leverage ratio is different one direction vs the other starting at the center possission.Also since the drive pin travels in an arc, that leverage it taken into account. The effect this has is no importance on a dragster since the weight is minimal for what it was designed for and for the most part just go straight.
If you have a P&S box I found the scroll in mine wasn't machined right. You could take the the linkage off it would turn fine one way and bind up about 2/3s the other way. Cleaned it up with a die grinder and it worked fine after that. If that is your problem Mark Williams also sells parts for the P&S box.
X2, I had the same problem & it ended up being in my ross box. chewed up loose bearings & the follower pin/gear was gauled up a little.!
P&S has been out of business for around 3-4 years since the owner died, Had enough parts for 60 boxes except for the scroll gear, the company that machined those was sold off and the order for just 60 more parts was too much investment for P&S since the owner was around 90years old and since the new billit boxes came to be the sales of the P&S's were only 2-3 a year. Tom Hanna purchased the remaing box inventory and started making gears, but other personal issues came into play and now the shop is in limbo. If your box was that bad that you had to massage it to get it to work, it did not come from P&S in that condition, Thad was real picky about how those boxes wer set up and how smooth they were.
Thx for all the help guys I will do some more research and post some more pics this week, don't suspect the steering box, the caster is approx 33 degrees
I agree with the earlier post by rooman. If possible i would knock the caster down also 1 thing to check is to measure the lower king pin position from front to rear and make sure they are the same on both sides. If one side is back it will definetly cause the same problem.
The other thing I found with mine was the drag link was to light or long how ever you want to look at it. It would turn to the right no problem and would barely turn left. Changing caster to 18 from 30 helped but didn't fix it. What turned out to be happening the drag link would bow down when in compression to turn left. I slid the next size tubing over it and problem solved. I maybe could have moved the guide but was worried about binding. No matter what the problem is I would recommend changing the caster. Unless it will be a very low use vehicle.
Ok guys here a pics, it's an all original 64 shubeck chute packer Nothing has been changed in the linkages or radius rods, I have pics from 64 to 68 before it was taken out of storage a little while ago
It all come down to this "Gravity" and the tendency of the car steering left and most cars with this much caster all do it and gets more pronounced when things get loose. Driving the steering off the left spindle (verses bellcrank) and with caster the weight of the car is forceing the chassie lower and the least resistent path is the steering arm going foward and up and causes the car to steer left, as we try and turn the steering to the right(pulling down on the steering arm) all the effort is into the picking up of the chassie (weight) and holding it with steering box. Now if both box and spindle bushings have a little wear the it becomes eaiser for gravity . Any new car built today is made with less caster because they tend to use the newer front racing tires and not the crowned cycle type. You need the caster with the cycle type to drive the tread into the surface when turning to acheave grip while frontrunners (example) are a flat & narrow racing slick made with a compound rubber which can do the same with less caster because it doing all the work. Now if you change the caster you must be aware that with less caster and those tires there might be a tendency for the front end to push while turning if going around a corner too fast. Also by looking at the pictures that you are at max on some of the heims, so new hairpins should be made.
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