Steering

[jimmyybob]

Yes it is desert karts, i would like to know what your search criteria was as it took me hours to find one.!!!

I think for a hundred quid its well worth a go but as i said its still to big for the tractor and to difficult to get from the steering wheel to the rack........i think.!!

[la_coterie]

>Mark I've not looked on the site but there is USPS which is much cheaper (and slower) but not everybody will use them, could be worth asking if interested. Also there's an outside chance of getting clobbered customs charges & vat but I can't remember at what value it starts, something silly like 30ukp.
>jimmyybob  search cart steering rack - first page

There's no doubt those racks are very tempting

ttfn
steve (professional google searcher

[jimmyybob]

Tax will be no more than ?30 i dont think, i had a new aircon pump from the US and im sure it was only ?30 for a value of 150usd....(almost sure anyway)

[bill shuter]

I bought a programming unit to remap the ecu in my Dodge Ram, which I think was around ?250 & cost me about ?50 in tax. Worth the money though for the extra horses!
I'm surprised at price of Rack, it looks to be very good value for money.
Bill

[jimmyybob]

I measured the tractor.....it would fit................must stop myself must stop myself.

[quadra]

The price may be tempting, but I don't think it would work too well on a toylander due to the ratio. The rack gives 1.5 turns lock to lock and travels 4 inches. I don't think my steering travels 4 inches side to side and therefore less lock would be required. OK the engineering is better, but the ratio is too high for our application IMO.

[markh15]

Hi Mike,
You might be right on the movement, but I think it would give about 1 turn lock to lock on a Toylander, but would give a smoother, more realistic operation to the steering.
I don't know about yours, but mine is still very 'direct', with little L / L movement (and a little play), so this option might be the answer.

It's just a question of who's going to take the plunge, and splash out the ?130 first!!

Keep thinking,
Regards,
Mark.

[Aussie]

Hi

I think the ratio will work.  Calculating the amount of travel you get at the sterring arms is straight forward.  Measure the distance from the centre of the kig pin to the centre of the drag link mounting hole in the sterring arm.  This will give you the radius of the circle described by the steering arm.  Use the radius to calculate the circumference of the circle (2 x pie x R).  Next you need to know how many degrees your front wheels turn through from lock to lock.  You then divide the circumference of the circle described by the steering arm by 360 and multiply the result by the degrees of movement your front wheels have.  The result will be the amount of travel you have at the steering arm.

For example if you have steering arms 2 inches long (about typical for a Toylander I would think) and 90 degrees total travel at the front wheels the steering arm will move 3.141 inches ( 2 x 3.141(pie) x 2(radius) / 360 x 90 = 3.141).  With 60 degrees of movement at the front wheels the same 2 inche steering arms will have 2.094 inches of travel.  In terms of steering wheel movement at the ratio of the proposed rack it equates to between 3/4 and one full turn from lock to lock.

To utilise the full capacity of the steering rack you can make a relatively small increase to the length of the steering arms.  For example, if you extend the steering arms to 3 inches the arm will travel 4.71 inches in 90 degrees and 3.141 inches in 60 degrees.

Regards
Ian

[markh15]

Hi Guys,

WOW, What can I say!!!

Keep Busy,
Mark.

[quadra]

Ian

Excellent calcs. I can't extend my steering arms because they would foul the tyres, unless I change the angle of them to create some ackerman (which I will do when I get some time). When i said I didn't think it would work, what I meant to say was, I didn't think it was a great improvement in terms of value for money. My steering has about 3/4 of a turn lock to lock and cost about ?20 to make, the steering is still quite heavy (my stupid fault for wanting fat tyres) but once moving both my boys can handle to car ok. One way of improving the standard setup is to try and eliminate any play in the steering, by using bearings to hold the column, imo this improves steering feel and costs very little to do.

Mike

[minimad]

Can't agree more. Easy to make (even I made it), cheap and easy to use. My Dad built a Geep with what was in the manual and my kids used the car with no problem from being small until they were far too big and I passed it on down the family line. I made mine with the A/angle set up (cos I'd been taught it at college) but there was no noticable difference in operation. At some stage I'd like to try the whole shooting match: AA, Castor and Camber just for the sake of it.

Meanwhile I'm looking for a scooter to put under my Minim Oak.
Cheers Minimad Greg.

[jimmyybob]

Ooohhh well done. 3 weeks sounds a long time, ive had parts delivered in 10 days max from the US.

[Tore]

Hmm.  Seems my post about buying the 8" rack from Desert Karts just vanished??

Anyway, jimmyybob, the reason for the long shipping time is money.  Desert Design & Fabrication only ship by UPS.  UPS only offer express shipping from the US to Norway.  UPS express is *very* expensive.

Instead I choose to have it shipped by ground to a forwarder in the US, and have them send me the package.  They handle customs and taxes too, saving me quite some work.

-Tore