Nerd Rods, 55-59 Truck Frame Project 1956, C4 suspension, 5.3L Auto, Kit Frame Design

[rat_rod_russell]

First, I was correct, the inner tie rods on the truck were not correct. They were the 84-87's on an 88-96 rack. That's why I had to cut them. So that will probably be an easy fix. Here are a few shots from another chassis in the shop with the steering arms bolted up.





Down side this only has 14mm of thread engagement on the rod end. While "the diameter of the shaft" in threads worth of engagement is acceptable by most books this just doesn't feel like enough for an almost all tension stress. So I'll probably still replace the end. Go to a male 14mm rod end and have a 14mm threaded sleeve made for the two the both thread in from each end. Cut a little off the rack and pinion's inner tie rod and call it much safer for the kit.


Now the report on the steering and driving feel.

I have put a few miles on the truck around town and on a longer trip to the Austin Cars and Coffee this last Sunday. The verdict at the moment is that it feels much better now that you are not fighting the steering with each turn but the turning radius is only slightly improved. Noticeably improved but not completely. I feel like its good enough for most customers since the "fighting steering wheel" feel is gone but it could be better. I've not gone back to my "test site" because of the local carnival is in town and the ferris wheel is right in the middle of the concrete I use for that particular test. The butt measuring tape says 4-8 feet tighter since the wheels aren't fighting each other any more but I won't say any more till I get an accurate testable metric to confirm.



I'm going to try one more prototype on the red truck with a "drift racer" trick and shorten the arm length to increase the angle of the steering arm. This isn't the best way to get more turning radius since it also creates "Ackerman migration" that exacerbates the farther you turn but if guys have happily been suffering bad Ackerman and bad turning radius this whole time I think Bad Ackerman and an acceptable turning radius are more desirable outcome. We'll see what I can do. I need to fix up a computer to start plugging in numbers to my suspension geometry program and see what I can do with the pivot location to make this workable.

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Later
-Russell @ Nerd Rods