Let me begin by stating, I got the courage to begin this project by Googling "Cowl Steering" and discovering a posting by FodsRods http://www.killbillet.com/showthread.php?12283-Reversing-Gear-Box-For-Cowl-Steering. Many thanks to that gentleman for sharing his experience and providing me the courage to violate my precious Roadster. Secondly, understand there is no good reason for Cowl Steering on a Hot Rod except,....for the cool factor,.... and man it is cool! I am very pleased with the result and have just completed a 3000 mile road trip in my re-configured Deuce. I was trained as a designer/draftsman so I have the ability visualize and start projects on paper and,.....that saves a lot of false starts and wasted material and energy. Even if one doesn't draw well, it's still an extremely valid process to help one organize his thoughts. I will post an expedited "step by step" for those who are interested and respond to any questions. Following is the concept and the result. I will add images and text in the following hours and days. -
Works great on early cars with a small foot box, gets the column out of the way for more room. Nice job, looks great x 2 on the cap.
Well a design degree is certainly helpful when deciding how to build something. I caould probably come up with some other reasons for cowl steering but cool factor is certainly good enough. What I am seeing is looking well though out I will be watching the build on this one.
To start, I had a number of parameters familiar, I expect, to most on this forum. It had to be:... modest in cost, something I could achieve w/o a full machine shop, components easy to purchase or make, friendly to drive and cool! I purchased and reversed a late 70's Ford box. The process per the posting on KillBillet mentioned in the initial post. The upside of the Ford box is slow ratio, long pitman shaft and widely spaced mounting points. A Corvair unit looks too whimpy to me. The red spot is where the input shaft will exit. - - -
The Poly is a Red Herring! It is/was a Chevy. Built the Poly into a Hemi which is in the car now. More on that later 'tho you might see it in some future pics.
The info is in the kill billet link in his first post. Quite a simple process when you get down to it. It even has the parts numbers for the seal, bearings and soft plug you need to complete the process. Good thread WStory, I like it that the gear box is plenty strong and should be pretty easy to find in any part of the country.
I discovered in the KillBillet post that all of the parts listed, except for the plugs, were for rebuilding the stock box. If you purchase a worn box you will need them. I bought a reconditioned box so did not need the bearings or seals. You might also notice that some of the pics here and in the future are out of sequence. That's primarily because I did the mock-up and tuned the geometry before tackling reversing the box. First order of business was appearance. I mocked up the look taking into account "bump steer" via having the drag link being close to the same length as the hairpins and parallel with them. Plus, I wanted pretty much the same angle and location of the steering wheel and room for my feet. - - I approximated the steering ratio I wanted by comparison to the Vega box I was used to, and working backward I roughed out the dimensions and built a mock-up. With a little fudging in full size I now had the working dimensions for the real thing. - - Before committing much to steel, the under dash structure was also mocked up using the location of the pitman shaft to determine how the remainder of the ***embly would configure. - - I was really focused on ***uring that I had adequate foot room as so many I looked at seemed to be really tight in that area. Finally jury-rigged the box in place and it all seemed to work!
That's great tech right there. Well thought out and planned. I'll be saving this in my personal "Tech Archive" since the new improved HAMB doesn't have one anymore. Thanks
I'm pretty good at makin sparks and bendin **** in the garage but computers and the internet are pretty much beyond my mental skills. That said,....when I click on the technical tag adjacent to my Cowl Steering thread, all the listings are "technical" but there is no information in the adjacent columns for "replies", "views" or "last message". What gives? Can I undo that? I need help. Got that handled!
Measured and studied and procrastinated but finally had to **** it up!!!!!!!............. - Tacked stuff together for a trial fit. Note the steel kick panel and 1" square crossmember attached to the firewall. - - The steering box was not "reversed" yet. The red spot is where the input shaft will exit and that was the target for the column/shaft attachment. A lot of the head scratching was in developing mounting points that spread out the loads. The whole thing will be, like the initial sketch, a kinda monocoque dog-house. - And here's what it looks like on the bench. The gussets on the top transfer to load for the door jams to the firewall cross member. - And on the outside,..... - The V Dub thing gave me the idea for a blister over the pitman shaft. - More maybe tomorrow
Great eclectic thinking, your steering box looks very F100 to me! If you use any right hand drive box, mounted on the opposite side you get the result for cowl steer, we can use one of yours with same effect on the right side, food for thought for intending side steer enthusiasts maybe! Car looks great to, cheers from Aussie!
The box looks FACTORY reversed and then you take it apart and un-reverse it! I wonder if it fits something else in the un-reversed state? Really nice how well it fits the cowl and a wicked job on the bracing etc. Impressive.
Great Engineering and Execution Bill, I'm following this one and looking forward to seeing the finished product at Deuce Days next year. Keith
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