Building The Darn Thing Part 4 of n
Ive had to stop building because Ive built everything Ive designed so far. And since Im trying to make this repeatable, I need to fully design everything and resist the urge to just start welding things together until a car comes out.
To that end, I need steering to happen. I have the rear wheels mounted to the frame, and if I can get the front wheels and steering done then I can do chipikart soap box derby edition. Ive trashed my previous designs for the steering. Since I changed my design to the weld-n-go version, I no longer have the original steering mounts to work with. So Im going with something simpler, and more importantly, cheaper.
So heres the new design. Its two blocks of my favorite nearly-indestructible not-so-mild steel, 4140. That, a bolt, and two bushings. The bushings are sintered bronze for smooth motion, and flanged so I can fake having some kind of thrust washer. This should let me have smooth, and close to slop-free motion.
And here it is installed. Im using a 3/8 shoulder bolt as the pin, and it also acts as the smooth bearing surface.
The bracket is more weldment. Im really bad at bending steel, much less 1/4 thick 4140. Its much easier (and more precise) for me to just cut three pieces and weld them together.
So now I have a (hopefully) final steering design. Now I just have to build them, but considering Ive done the design, that shouldnt be too hard. Finding time to build them in will be the hard part.