And Death was invited to take a hike. The headline should read (A) beer was drunk, as in I had a 12 oz. bottle of Shiner and then switched to generic Mt. Dew (Mountain Breeze citrus flavored soda with other natural flavors is the name on the label).
I also took a long walk to pay my phone bill and deposit a check in the bank and get a slight heat injury because the index spiked to 114° while I was out. I have things that have to be done at home for the next two days, then on Thursday I’m planning on getting a haircut and buying stamps. I can’t track the package, but the order with the steering box has been shipped and the money removed from my account. I have about $180 left now for various things like getting a drink or a meal while I’m out away from the house, or buying stuff online again. Edit to add, as I was composing the post package tracking became available and my package is in Omaha as of last update.
I have a solution to the steering shaft conundrum I was fighting, both the problem of snaking the shaft around the radiator and the problem of snaking the shaft around/over the alternator on the engine. Basically I’m going to use the steering box as one of the supports for the steering shaft by using a solid steering coupler and welding a stub shaft long enough to get past the radiator before switching to the cheaper less expensive DD style U-Joints. Now obviously I don’t want to “cheap out” on something like steering components that might cause me to die if they fail at the wrong time, but I also don’t have a very large budget for this. Also a major problem with the welded joints is when you’re done you basically have a non-repairable assembly, and any intermediate bearings have to be left on the shafts. Now for a strictly street car that gets limited use this could work, until the car hits a curb or something and damages the steering linkages.
Also the changes I have had to make to the driver’s side of the frame are adding weight in a place I don’t want to add weight, driver’s side front of the car. I had to add 3 tubes to the frame and front bulkhead just to have some way to physically mount the box to the car, but one of those tubes will also serve as a mount for the J-Bar that locates the front axle laterally, so partial win, maybe? Anyway the weight is right in front of and under the front axle on the left side which means something else will have to go passenger side rear axle to balance, and the total moment of the car will increase which is bad, high total moments make the car change direction less quick and the whole raison d’être for the car requires rapid changes in direction. And yes I had to copy-paste the French translation because my keyboard doesn’t support diacriticals or reverse accents.
Anywho, the design criteria requires the lowest possible total moment, also called the polar moment of inertia. This allows the car to respond to inputs for rapid changes in direction, like in slaloms. That’s why I have been doing things like putting heavy things in the middle of the wheelbase as much as possible, and also putting things close to the rear axle which is the pivot point for vehicles that steer from the front wheels until traction is broken. In cars that steer with the front wheels the front wheels push the front end sideways around the rear axle so the less weight up front the better for changing direction. This is another reason why rear mid-engine cars are preferred in classes where engine placement is free. In the class I’m building for the back of the engine has to be in the same general vicinity as the make and model the car is based on. In this case the “based on” is a 1923 model T Ford, so ahead of the firewall behind the front axle and the body can be moved back until it hits the rear axle and stay within class rules for Goodguys, SCCA doesn’t care as long as legs and lower torso don’t hang out of the body and I sit someplace behind the front axle and in front of the rear axle. And the design changes are two tubes added to the front bulkhead on the left side to support a tube running from the front bulkhead to the left side front bottom frame rail, to provide a place to mount the radiator and the steering box and secondarily provide a place to hang the frame end of the front J-Bar.
And that looks like a decent place to stop the rambling that has developed for some reason.
Witch on a Bicycle 