I'd like to get some comments, pro and con on why I shouldn,t put my tie rod out in front of my axle other than the the known fact that it will scuff Alittle in sharp turning situations.
There have been plenty of "front Steer" cars manufactured over the years, both OE and Hot Rods. It is more difficult to get correct or 100% Ackerman this way but it is not impossible. Study carefully!
Steering Geometry 101: Visualize an imaginary line from the center of the rear axle thru the kingpin. The tie rod end must be on this line for the geometry to be correct. So if you want the tie rod to be in front, the spindle arms will need to be bent way our almost to the tire. On some cars there may not be enough room to do this. The principle here is called Ackerman. It provides for the inner wheel in a turn to turn sharper that the outer wheel.
It ****s, ask me how I know... I completely redesigned the front suspension on my '34 pickup to get away from it after I had it on the road for a year. Parking is a pain, steering response is weird at times, and it wears the tires out. It's worth spending the extra 15 minutes to engineer it correctly.
As long as the angle of the steering arms is correct you should be fine. The arms should be angled towards the brakes, not away from the brakes as usual. There may be clearance issues, and it might make sense to make up new arms rather than try to bend your old ones. Also, if your car doesn't have frame horns you're putting the tie rod in a very vulnerable position. It won't work as a bumper! Frame horns will protect it adequately, though.
Even if you do get it right, which is very difficult, then about 1/2 the people standing in front of your ride will use it for a footrest. I don't like people's feet on my steering linkage.
I had some clearance problems on my Model A due to the 6" dropped axle. I could not put the tie rod behind on the bottom where it should be. But I did not want it out front either. So I moved it to the top, but still behind the axle, easy to set the Ackerman & not a footrest.
Go look at a jeep. Front steer for decades. The trouble is that it is done wrong when joe wrench turner does his own. You can not use rear steer arms just turned backwards. They are made to position the tie rod end correctly for rear steer, not front steer. I posted this on another thread yesterday: Front steering arms Ae & Bf have exactly the same input as rear steering arms Ac & Bd. Putting the arms in front is less convenient to package and usually presents some compromises in bump steer to squeeze it in, but it is not a requirement that it be in the rear. Pretty standard fare in 4x4 trucks. In the off-road world the arms are really short to maximize clearance or really long and tucked into the backspace of the wheel. There are a great many variables, but it is untrue that proper ackerman can only be achieved with tie-rod behind the axle. If you doubt that it is correct ackerman angle, try making a u-turn in a YJ sometime. <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->
a mustang II has front steer , so does my `95 S-10....i'm sure they got ackermann close from the factory to work properly. so it can be made to work if setup like scottybacus posted i just don't like the looks of a tierod up front on a straight axle
The really great thing about having the rod in front is if you have a little to much toe out you can just stomp on the rod and you will fix it!! Don't do it for all of the reasons above plus it looks ****ty and it is just WRONG!!! Do it right or don't do it. Rex
Thanks guys, i get it.. The tie rod is back up front. With a pair of dropped steering arms, and alittle off the bottom of the radiator. The problem is solved.
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