Can this steering setup work

I'm just looking at different ways to desing a steering system on my truck and wondered if a chain drive style would work. I've attached an example (not my truck, and yes, I misspelled steering) of something I was thinking about looking into further. I did run across an enclosed chain drive steering setup all enclosed in a box but it was $400+ and would actually like the appearance of the chain exposed on my rat.



Any feedback on issue that I would run into trying something like this would be much appreciated.

Over and out,

Zed

IMO it would seem a little scary to have the whole steering system reliant on an exposed chain - what if it fell off, a stick got jammed in there, etc?

I like that concept though. I think I'd have to put a guard around it to make sure nothing ended up jammed in there though.

It can work. Many have been made and Speedway and others sell them. Now I dont think I would run that on the street. I also dont think its legal. That would be priceless telling your insurance agent that your chain fell off when you wrecked.

Check out this chain steering setup on a 263mph streamliner. Now this one is crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXaKLbIACB0

Sid

Yes it will work if engineered properly. Chains take a heck of a lot more abuse than that steering set up will provide.

^ Thats a pretty sweet looking set up. For a slightly different look you could alway add an expanded metal guard around it, just beat the hell out of the guard, break a few of the links in the expanded metal to get the used and abused look... Or just leave it open... Either way it looks pretty sweet.

Awesome, thanks for the picture.

pistolpete - great idea too. I think I'll give this setup a try. If nothing else it will be a good learning experience.

Sid

I'm doing a chain drive on mine.

The idler sprocket bothers me a little. I think the engineered one that they sell has no idler. Don't know if I am right or wrong, but it just looks like it might cause a problem at some point.

Don

Here's the unit that's already commercially available.

I like the look. As long as the chain is tight, I wouldn't worry about a chains durability.
I saw some pics of this somewhere and immediately thought that a geardrive setup would look sweet. I suppose with a little thought you could change the speed of your steering if you wanted to.

Gastrick said:

Yes it will work if engineered properly. Chains take a heck of a lot more abuse than that steering set up will provide.

Click to expand...

I would fabricate some type of cover. It isn't too hard to imagine the front wheel kicking up a rock into the chain, jamming your steering.

chain steer is bad azz. i'm not seeing the problem with the idler, there isnt alot wear.
its only a few turns lock to lock.

worth it to have the extra room

Its like the Steer Clear from Wizard only without the cover. I am running one on my roadster.

http://www.wizardsteerclear.com/

I too am going to be using a chain drive steering set up on my 51 COE chevy. I found the same picture posted above along with some others and immediatley thought that it would be a great set up for what I wanted to do. The "engineered" units from speedway and that other one are nice too but way too pricey. You can go down to you local industrial chain supplier, (Bearing, Belt and Chain for me here in Tucson), and get everything you will need to "engineer" your own for less that $200. Double roller chain is cool looking but definitely overkill. If you think about it almost any setup using #50 or 60 chain will have alot more strength and solid feel than a floppy rubber rag joint that most cars have on their engineered steering columns. I am going to keep the ratio 1:1 just so there are no surprises. It's real easy to naysay this one at first glance (I did initially) but the safety factor actually has the potential to be alot higher than alot of "stock" setups. This is assuming you have decent fabricating skills and are not a hack.

Thank you for the thread and info input from everyone. I also will now be doing that. Love it. Will make it so much easier on my steering application. RRR does it again for me. Thank you

Hi, I found this site by getting hits on my site from this forum. I am the guy that designed and manufactures Steer Clear. I have no problem with offering help to people that want to build there own chain drive steering unit. After looking at the one in this thread I would suggest a few modifications, most importantly a cover is a must! I would also like to see the shafts supported on both ends to eliminate the chance of deflection. What I mean by this is when you apply force to the chain by turning the wheel the two sprockets want to pull towards each other. As far as using gears, first you have to have a odd number of gears (3,5,7,9) to keep the input and output moving in the same direction. It is also very difficult to use multiple gears without getting a lot of backlash, or a very stiff feel. I welcome any questions or comments anyone might have

Thanks for the input wizardfab.