In our last post we covered the steering from the firewall forward. Today we worked from the firewall back into the drivers area. The day started out with one of the crew quitting the project. I guess things just go this way sometimes. A project like this can be a bit like a marriage - sometimes the compatability just isnt there. We wish him well and will miss him. Space in a belltank is tight, so part of the steering is inside the firewall, and part outside. Once we got the shaft into the ****pit the wheel still had to move to the right about 2 inches and up about the same. Our solution was two steering universals and a sort of "cage" to hold everything in place. The cage was of tripod design and made from one inch tubing. I took time to really snooth this piece out cause it'll be so visible and also because I really have a thing about braces and such. It always seems to me that spending an extra hour here or there on "appearance only" is time well spent. Then we took turns sitting in the ****pit trying to decide on what the steering wheel should look like. We settled on a ****erfly shaped wheel about 10 inches in diameter and cut out a pattern from posterboard. Next week we'll be at the salt (without the car) but we'll cover the steering wheel construction in our next post when we return
I talked with Megan (ChevyGirlRox) at Bonneville, and she suggested that rather than startig a new post each week, we should just add onto last weeks post -- So here goes. This was our first work day back from the salt. We learned a bunch by looking at others' cars and we were paying close attention to how the builders laid out the drivers ****pits. We were thinking ours was pretty cramped. We dont feel that way anymore. It takes a shoehorn to get some drivers in behind the wheel. Our quick coupling for the steering wheel arrived from Speedy Bill, Its a nice unit and reasonably priced. One push on the ****on, and the purple wheel mount comes off the shaft. The wheel itself we cut out of 5/16 aluminum. We used a wood cutting bandsaw for cutting the ouside, and a jigsaw for the inside. The two little bumps are for switches This week I'm gonna jazz this up with some cherrywood grips and polish it out all shiney. .Looks a bit crude in this picture. Most of our controls will be electrically activated with solenoids. This will eliminate the need for choke cables and ****pit levers and make cocpit layout more user friendly. More on this later. Thats it for this week.All this **** takes more time than we ever figured. For those interested, here's a link to the entire build http://kaparich.homestead.com/Bellytank.html
I would be very careful with that grinder, on the SFI ch***is that we build there can be no grinding of any welds. They want to see the weld and the discoloration from the heat. Check with your ch***is certifiers to be sure, the work that i see looks good and workmanlike and would hate to see an inspector get stomach ache over something like dressing up a weld. ***y rig.
The way I understand it, the major structural tube welds cannot be dressed. Others can. I may be wrong, I'll check.
YES!!! That shaft support looks great!! Thank you for getting out your files and spending the time! The devil is in the details FOR SURE! Keep it rockin and keep the posts coming!
Take a real close look (and feel) on your quick release hub. Some of the items from Speedway are sold with oval track use in mind, and because of that may not have the close tolerance you want on splines. You would be amazed how a couple extra thousands clearance on that spline will multiply by the time the motion gets to the front wheels. Nothing worse than the driver having to constantly correct the direction of the tank at speed. When we built the Swamp Rat 33 for Garlits in '88, we decided the rack steering we used was to fast, so we added a steering reducer. Well, with the extra set gears we had so much play, the car couldn't be controlled. We pulled it out on the return road, made a new shaft, and got back in line. Check all your clearances...it can make a difference.
The hub seems to be preety tightly splined to me, any tighter and you would have trouble releasing the wheel
The hub seems to be preety tightly splined to me, any tighter and you would have trouble releasing the wheel
The Jalopy Journal
