Wow! The front axle is just a leaf spring with brackets on the ends for the steering knuckles! Can't get much simpler than that! Camber would constantly change, but with a motorcycle tire it wouldn't matter that much. Besides, it will just wear in a rounded fashion as the camber would be in a constant state of change.
I came across one of these at the aircraft museum and immediately thought of using something like it on a cyclecar. Does anyone else get evil ideas from this thing?
It was developed by the Ackerman Airplane Company for use as landing gear. And yes, the wheel is a sprung mechanism. But it would allow one to build a rigid chassis cyclecar and just let the wheels do the work of softening the ride. Lots of rotating weight, but very little in the way of unsprung mass.
I see a number of problems with that. Camber control under lateral load is one: and if that were sorted the fact that camber gain would equal roll angle would be another! One would be limited to the geometry of trailing arms, which is less than ideal. And then, can this thing transmit driving or braking torque?
You wouldn't have that much trouble with wind-up on acceleration and braking because of that pear-shaped 'spring spoke'. One of those springs is always opposed to what you're doing in reference to the rotational. And at least on motorcycles the springs had enough width to prevent dishing under lateral loads, but I see what you mean about the possible camber issues. Interesting side note on these things, I've discovered that the Ackerman who invented them is the same Ackerman who first described the Ackerman Angle in steering geometry.
You sure about that? "Ackerman Angle" in steering was developed in the early 1800s. Maybe a relative though... The Wrights flew in 1903, so early 1900s would be the time frame for that wheel if developed for light aircraft. " Ackermann steering geometry is a geometric arrangement of linkages in the steering of a car or other vehicle designed to solve the problem of wheels on the inside and outside of a turn needing to trace out circles of different radius. It was invented by the German Carriage Builder Georg Lankensperger in Munich in 1817, then patented by his agent in England, Rudolph Ackermann (1764–1834) in 1818 for horse drawn carriages. Erasmus Darwin may have a prior claim as the inventor dating from 1758.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">[1]" </sup> <sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">(from Wikipedia) </sup>
The Jalopy Journal
