Steering Help

[VOH]

So we have been driving our recently constructed 2-seater cart around a little bit, but I have encountered a fault in the steering. Little back story, I cut apart a "china ATV" an utilized that for the front end suspension. i modified the vertical steering post from the ATV to a horizontal arrangement and lengthened the tie rods to fit the wider stance. For the steering, I built an offset arrangement that in theory should be just fine.

Trouble is:
1)Its a CRAZY short turn.
2)Its hard to actually turn it.

Can anyone else look at this and school me one how this may work, or confirm that I just need to scrap the setup and either do solid axle or chase down a rack n pinion for it.

 

[Slednut]

IMO this arm looks too long.

 

[Jeff Ivers]

I have looked at your 3 pictures till I am blue in the face and cannot understand your linkage. I see a steering shaft coming down from the steering wheel with a lever on it that I presume is locked so that it rotates left and right when the wheel is turned. I cannot tell what the small shaft going to the center of the vehicle from that arm actuates. Does it attach to the top of an arm that rotates on the short shaft and the tie rods attach to the opposite of that arm? If so, what is the distance from the short shaft to the attachment points of the tie rods and the shaft that goes to the steering wheel shaft? Do you need to lengthen those distances to increase the leverage? I have built an old fart cart, a swap meet cart and two downhill racers that all have fabricated steerage. These are documented in the threads below. A look at them may help.

 

[whateg01]

IMO this arm looks too long.

In the other pic, it looks like the arm in the center of the cart is approximately an equal length, but the tie rods pivot much closer to the top. Still, I agree that shortening the circled arm would make it turn easier and widen the turn out. Bear in mind, too, that on the quad, you had handlebars that were probably close to 2-1/2 or 3 feet across and now you have a steering wheel that is much smaller, so you don't have as much mechanical advantage.

Dave

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Your pictures are as bad as your steering geometry.

From what I can tell by the pictures (which isn't much) you need to shorten that arm off the steering column. That arm and the one the tie rods are connected to are operating on different arcs, which never works well. I agree though, no matter what you won't have very good leverage with that setup. Additionally, it will have horrible bump steer due to where the tie rods pivot in relation to where the suspension a-arms pivot.

My recommendation would be to get rid of the whole contraption and buy a little steering rack made for karts and build a steering column with 2 u-joints to be able to have the wheel offset to the driver's side while keeping the rack centered in the chassis.

 

[fiftyv8]

You will for ever have bump steering and wheel alignment problems,
Basically by widening this front end you have gone way past the capability of the tie rod design with conflicting arc's created by the tie rod and the suspension arms.

A small rack would be of great benefit although more mods could probably solve it but going by your skills to date I don't think it would be in your best interest to try any more homemade mods.

You need your tie rod arms to pivot in about the same location as the pivot point of the suspension arms (at the chassis) when the wheels are in the straight ahead position.
One look at say an early old Falcon steering setup and I think you would get the idea.

However a steering rack would be the easiest fix...

 

[Firstram]

Steering rack from a golf cart, cheap and plentiful.

 

[bullnerd]

lol, not enough travel to worry about bump steer.

5 yr old to dad:" the bump steer on this thing is terrible dad, the first inch is ok, the second inch is pulling the wheel out of my hands!"

Is there two threads for this thing?

 

[VOH]

lol, not enough travel to worry about bump steer.

5 yr old to dad:" the bump steer on this thing is terrible dad, the first inch is ok, the second inch is pulling the wheel out of my hands!"

Is there two threads for this thing?

yes. I had originally put it the original thread, and thought it might not get seen in there so i put it in its own thread.

 

[bullnerd]

Yeah, the hard steering is coming from that long bracket mounted to the steering shaft, like BB&G mentioned.

Get a couple u joints and go right to the original steering bellcrank.

 

[Spareparts]

Yeah as mentioned above, get a R&P out of a golf cart, it will slow the steering down a little but be smoother and easier.

 

[Milton Shaw]

Also most of those carts have a solid rear axle and no differential action so that makes turning them very hard. I have one and they are a ***** to turn, my used kart the steering knuckles were worn at pivot points and had a lot of slop. I put longer bolts and welded shaft collars to the knuckles where they were worn. The knuckles were supposed to turn in a bushing in the axle but were turning in the ears of the knuckle and wore it out with total movement about an inch at wheel axle.

 

[racingtadpole]

Investing in a couple of uni joints and getting rid of the offset would be a good start