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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Hi Mats. Thanks for chiming in. The 80mm (appriximatley for now) comes from using the upright with an upside down ball joint. This raises the steering arm a lot and the balance comes from lowering the car to about 80mm ground clearance. These two things together makes the large change.

(had to do it on the Brick that's how I know for sure)
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by Mats »

Right, guessed it was something like that. 8)
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by la_strega_nera »

If you look, the picture I posted shows a bracket that hangs off the dust shield mounts and the steering arm to give about a 4" drop on that car (Celica GT4 that's been converted to front steer, lexus v8 power and rwd)
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MD
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Thanks for the explanation but I fail to see how I can use it in my set up. Maybe if I remove the plank of wood betwen my ears I could see the light?

Anyhow as you all wanna pitchuz,here's the one that tells the story.

Note the horizontal position of the lower control arm. This is the starting position of the suspension travel and of course it goes up from here about 75mm max so by the time the steering arm moves to the max point, there are monkeys swinging off the palms trees up there and if you climbed up there too you could see for fkn miles !!! :shock: :P
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by Mats »

:shock:

Ok, loud and clear... :)
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by Micke »

Looks horrible.

What I did in my case being almost identical to yours is bend the steering arms.
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Micke,

Bending the arm is entirely possible and satisfies a lot of criteria like keeping the weight down,original fit of parts, no weld stresses in the upright etc. It is a good idea but I just have one question:

How much did the reduced leverage from the now shorter arm affect the steering weight? I expect to be running 8" rims with 225 tyres.

Appreciate your feedback as always.
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by Giuliettaevo2 »

Here is a pic from spindles that Richard Jemison worked on, they were lengthened and the steering arms were bend. :wink:
Image

How did you make the upside down balljoint? machine out the lower wishbone to fit a different make balljoint? What did you do with the tapered hole, weld up and redrill?
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

I am paranoid about welding the uprights and that's why I use the BJ conversion instead. Here's a photo of it.

However extending the bent arm for the original ratio I would consider. I will give that some serious thought !

The upright is reamed in the opposite direction and a sleeve installed for the fit.

You need a minimum of 16" wheels for this set up to work.

The BJ's are from a local common car now out of production.
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Close up of BJ in tension position.JPG (126.16 KiB) Viewed 6517 times
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by Giuliettaevo2 »

Thanks! That was exactly what i was thinking to do.. :D Just needed some confirmation on the idea.. :oops: But since i'm also gonna run into the steeringarm issue; how can we get these bend? :?

I'll be using 17" wheels so room is not a problem. :wink:
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by Micke »

Bending withour some heat can be tricky. We didn't even try. My uprights are welded anyway.

The arms become shorter indeed. That's an extra bonus. Not enough though and the steering is still too slow. I use 225 tires as well. No PS of course.
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Thanks Micke. Good to know that the shorter arm still does the job. I must confess that using heat and bending the arm to a precise location so that you get less than 15thou error is a big ask. As Mats says, minor changes make a big difference so to do this is a bit like taking your appendix out via your arse. :mrgreen: Sure it can be done but the job stinks..

It would be great to set up some parallel arms and be able to move the connection up and down by shimms to locate the exact position required.

The lesser option is relocate the arm lower down using a transfer plate.

I got some ideas of how to do this but I cannot use CAD. If I put the photos up with the instructions on what to do, can someone draw it up so we can share the idea properly?
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Here's the set up on the Brick

It has a weld on the upright that I dont want to repeat. See green arrow.
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

Here's some photos of what I have in mind and as I said in a previous post. If someone can do a CAD drawing of the idea that would be good.

The photos simply propose a relocation of the arm by using a conversion plate. A better idea maybe to retain the original arm and add a second one with a fixing between the two so a tie rod could be positioned there and shim up and down for adjustment?
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Re: The Orange Cab -MD's New Racer

Post by MD »

One more photo to make sense of it..
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