Can anyone please give me any tips on my steering.

[Neal collins]

Ive been building this for a few months in my spare time and trying to get the bugs worked out. Im stuck I cant go very fast at all the wheel jerks when I turn and when I try and correct it it jerks the otherway and its hard to steer its my first time building one any advice would really help thanks

 

[BigWes]

Yea stop before you get killed, your rods are attached attached to the steering shaft wrong making your Ackerman geometry basically backwards. Unless the geometry is played out on the spindles somehow, which I can't see from the photos you will have the exact issues you describe. I thought most of those buggies had rack and pinion steering anyway, that doesn't even look right on there, ask 420racer he messed with buggies

Wes

 

[Neal collins]

I made this buggy from a 4wheeler that's why its like that thanks for the advice

 

[420Racer]

I'm trying to get a good idea of what I'm looking at here. I have done this before mounting a quad front end to buggys. Did you use the quad steering shaft? It looks like you have extended the tierod mounting position to the shaft out pretty far if I'm seeing it right. If you did it is most likely only taking you a short turn of the steering wheel to turn the wheels. That is not what you want. You would want the tierod connection to be as close as possible to your steering shaft to give you more leverage when turning. Post some more pics of the tierods hooked up so I can see what's going on here.

 

[420Racer]

Maybe these pics will help. These are pretty old but I mounted a 84 Suzuki front end on this buggy. I used the quad steering shaft. I used the quad tie rods but cut them and welded a pipe over them to get the right length I needed. This worked pretty good but the steering was too quick because of the way quads are setup. You have to check and make sure you have clearance on all your suspension parts so the tie rods do not hit anything when the suspension flexes. Btw this buggy will be getting done again soon but I will be putting a rack and pinion setup on it 420 predator, electric reverse and independent suspension in the rear

 

[Neal collins]

That's exactly what I did Im going to try and take the piece I made off the end of my steering shaft. And try to do what you

 

[big-d]

There are several things wrong with this steering setup. Some of them will not be noticed on an offroad kart like this. As mentioned already, You want the max turn of the steering shaft closely matched the max turn angle of your knuckles. How long the tab is that connects the inner tie rod ends to the steering shaft is what makes this adjustment. Having too long of a distance here will greatly increase steering effort because of leverage. Having too short of a distance will decrease the steering at the wheels, meaning you will not be able to turn as sharp.


The main thing you are feeling right now is- You have reverse ackermann.

There are 2 ways to correct the ackermann on this setup. First, try unbolting the steering arms and tie rods and see if there is room for them to fit on opposite sides from where they are now (they would be pointing out instead of in, which puts them inside the rim a little). If that works. Bolt them on with some locktite and make new tie rods to match the new length. If they do not fit, send me a PM and I will come back to this thread and give another solution. (I do not come on here very often)


Just to qualify my advise a little, I grafted a Yamaha blaster 4 wheeler front end onto a go kart and had to custom make the steering for it. The steering arms were bolt on just like yours. My steering was originally behind the knuckles, which would have made the tie rods connect to the steering shaft right where my legs needed to be in order to drive the kart. I changed the steering from behind the knuckles to in front and designed my own steering setup. Now it drives and handles amazing.

To see pictures of the steering setup I made for the Blaster suspension, Go to posts 72 & 73 of this link.
http://www.diygokarts.com/vb/showthread.php?t=32848&page=4

 

[Duceduce]

Buddy !!! This thing looks bad a$$ed!! Hope you get the steering figured out !!