And was wondering if anyone has used it....Pricy at $600.00.....How is it used, cut your shaft and mount this near the inside of the firewall? Here's what it says...................
There was a tech article in Street Rodder mag about a year ago on the instalation in a T if I remember correctly. Seems like a neat part.
http://www.wizardsteerclear.com/index.html I think this is the place that makes these. Gives a little info but prices look similar. I plan on running one of these in a truck I am about to start working on.
Might be a good thing, but living in the land of right hand drive, that thing reminds me a little too much of the chain drive conversions done on early US imports. Pete
These things may be the best thing since wide whites but they sure do look weird. Something about that just isn't right. JH
It DOES have a chain inside. Rod & Custom did an article in March 2006. Seems you could build one for under a hundred bucks.
I saw one somewhere else being sold that isnt fully enclosed. Its just two pieces of steel with two pullies and a chain setup like a timing gear. The one I saw had the sides exposed.
These have been around for at least 15 years. Started in Street Stock racing. At a much LOWER price !!!
Here's one on a T bucket,...should go on the interior side of the firewall, looks too "industrial" on a hoodless car.
some, uh, interesting details on that car. wrought iron hairpins? the front mount of the rear hairpins, i'd like to see a better shot of that, looks like it might be a lot of stress on it. rack n pinion steering going right through the frame on a solid axle car? i don't see any spring up front, torsion bar?
Basically the same thing as the old stock car steering trick. We used to use an SBC timing gear set right up by the steering wheel to speed up the boxes. .
Gear driven sounds a whole lot safer, I was thinking that before I saw your post , you know what they say about chains: They are only as strong as the weakest link. For a gear drive you would need an odd number of gears, three, five or seven gears to keep the rotation correct. The benifit would be you could also change the ratio of you box by altering the gears inside. Much like a quick change . I think I would hide it behind the firewall. chuck
Hey - I've been reading these posts about Steer Clear and just had to reply since I work for the guy who designed and manufactures the product you were talking about. First of all, he spent almost 3 yrs developing & testing it, meaning a lot went into both the form and function. There is no weak link in the chain because there is no master link. It's made using a continuous chain that's also pre-stressed. Yea, it is a 1:1 ratio, but changing the ratio on this unit can be done easily and is no big deal. As far as the durability of it goes, we sponsor an offroad race truck that races in the Pro Truck & the Mickey Thompson Series - the guy crashed (barrel rolled) it last season, messed up most everything else, but the Steer Clear unit still worked. It was also crash-tested (unintentionally) in a 27T and that guy still runs the same Steer Clear unit in his car. If the price seems a bit much, factor in the custom made extruded case, insurance, high quality parts, advertising, overhead, etc. Sure, you probably can make one at home for less and that's cool. But sometimes when you pay a little bit more you actually get something that's worth it.
I saw these at SEMA. They seem nice. The guy was very talkative and seems like a nice guy. He was telling me that he cruises though the HAMB now and then and saw my post about building your own...He knew he wasn't the first to build these. He just feels he has the time into them to make them safe. The only reason I did it is because I needed one and have the tools to build it safely.... plus It only cost me $20.00. The gear drive set up looks pretty good also. You do not loose any feel. It is a pretty solid set up. I have almost zero backlash in my home built jobby...Mine looks more homegrown and less refined.. They work good to solve offset problems in your steering...EVILT
If this does have a chain inside, no matter what the chain is I would not want this on a car of mine. Just not the safest thing to have controling the direction that your car will be traveling. If you are safety consious, this is not the way to correct a steering angle problem.
You will not find a rag joint in any car that I build or a single circuit master cylinder either. Just not the safe way of building a car. Safety is always first in my mind.
I guees I don't know all the dynamis of the chain drive system but do know that a chain is a mighty strong piece of machinery. For example, what do you think they are using on the Pro Stock motorcycles, or even better, on the Nitro Harleys? A chain, of course. Strong enough for them, good enough for me. Plus, as stated above, I feel that the guys that are making this setup have definitely done their homework. Also, I have a friend in Rochester that has been using a very similar homebrew setup for years. First on his '34 Ford and now on his deuce 3-wdw. Both are very driveable cars with lots of road feel. Many many trouble free miles supports the useage of this setup. With respect to their use when converting to right hand drive, it must have been safe as the Aussie government allowed its use and we all know how much of a PITA their guv can be. Also, the US gov has used this setup for years on the postal vans and jeeps. Sooooo, I guess I don't see the big concern - other than they are UGLY! I think that may be the deciding factor for anyone that runs with no hood. John, aka "oldandkrusty"
If a timing chain, or motorcycle chain breaks, the only problem is you don't get anywhere. You will mot kill or maim someone in an acident. I worked as a service manager at a GMC truck store, ane we had a contract to repair postal vehicles, and they did not have a chain drive steering system. At least this was the current design of the postal delivery vans.
The aftermarket chain drive conversions were being marketed down under in the 80's when US imports were becoming more frequent - advertised in ASR etc. I'm told you lose all road feel, and wheel will not even centre itself out of turns. How is this unit different?
no matter what anyone thinks chains eventually stretch. they have built in tolerences or they will bind up! the gear drive sounds good but are these boxes filled with lube for lubing the gears? it's gonna solve my steering problem on my 50' chevy coe with front wheel drive. wish i would have known about it 15 years ago!
I think the gear drive sounds better too. I keep remebering when I was a kid in the auto parts store, they had the thing on the counter, half filled with regular oil, the other half full of lucas oil, with the little gears and crank to turn them. You could see the lube on the gears. That's what I picture when I see this.
This is basically a stock car steering quickener without the gear reduction. D&M manufacturing built a chain steereing quickener for stock cars for years, and I never saw one fail. I know of one that has been used for over 15 years, and it is still going strong.We used to build them out of small block Chevy timing sets, except that we would install a tensioner on them to adjust chain slack. On the subject of chains, I have seen 4WD transfer cases with chains in them, so they cannot be all that bad.
I guess I didn't address the question of road feel in my previous post, but the fact is that all Steer Clear can do is improve what road feel you already have or would have had. You may be thinking BS- but what you're doing is adding this unit into a system. If that system is set up (or would have been set up) with some wild u-joint angle/support bearings, you straighten them out with this set up. So all the feel can do is improve. We do ask our customers for their feedback, and every one of them say the same thing - the car handles great, or it feels so smooth that you can't tell it's even there, no "slop" at all, etc. As far as the wheel not returning, someone asked how our unit is different - without seeing the set up/unit referred to, we can only guess how ours might be different. But first off, we have never encountered a problem with wheel return. Period. Our guess may be the set up referred to just has way too much resistance designed into it - maybe they used bushings on the shafts while we use two perm. lubed and sealed deep groove ball bearings on each shaft. But theres just too many unknowns to say for sure. On safety, consider how many airplanes fly our friendly skies with this exact same set up - and they have FAA approval. Then there's boats, forklifts, off-roaders, and a bunch of other applications for these. I can tell you that we test the hell out of these things. They are measured, then spun on a lathe (forward & in reverse) at 1500 rpms for approx. 100 hours, then taken apart & re-measured. The amount of wear is virtually undetectable. Do the math - testing this way amounts to around 9,000,000 revolutions - thats a whole lot of turning the steering wheel back and forth driving. We realize theres no resistance testing this way, but in all the testing and in all the sales, we've not had one problem or complaint. None. So those 3 years that went into the research and development were worth it - safety, quality, durability, reliability - all of these went into makind this product.
I understand that they are tested, but still it is a chain that determines the direction my car will travel. A very complex unit to correct a problem that should be addressed in another manner. Less of an angle, move pedals. Something that a pair of u-joints and a little bit of pre planning could correct this problem, not with a chain drive system.
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