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arbalest
Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 93 Location: Windham
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Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 6:12 pm Post subject: hub center steering design specifics |
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Blackbird Bill, these questions are for you. I have been looking over your Blackbird fabrication photos and have a couple of questions:
1: what did you use for upper and lower ball joints?
2: it appears you changed the design of the steering geometry over the course of the photos; can you elaborate on the changes to the steering arm (that connects to the upright), specifically, is there a bearing or a bushing at the connection point to the upright? It also appears that you changed the geometry of the (don't know the term) that connects the triple tree/forks to the steering arm. Can you elaborate on the final design and why you changed from the initial design?
Thanks,
Mike Lydon |
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bmcsheehy
Joined: 22 Jan 2005 Posts: 991 Location: Massachusetts USA
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Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 10:48 am Post subject: |
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The original design for the steering arm used two tie-rod ends as the up & down pivot.
The fender bracket is mounted to the steering arm.
The tie-rod ends are manufactured with springs pushing down against the ball to take up any play and or wear.
When I added the leverage of the fender and fender bracket, the fender could be moved left to right very easily.
Causing the fender to rub the tire.
The current design uses ball bearings as the up and down pivot. There is no movement in the fender now.
The wishbone, original design if you can see in the photo, had tabs welded on either side of the fork tubes.
The alignment was less than perfect due to the welding operation. As a result there was minor binding and it was very noisy, a creaking sound.
The new design allowed me to run a reamer through the wishbone and straighten any alignment issues after the welding operation.
Also like the look of the new design, looks cleaner to me.
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arbalest
Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 93 Location: Windham
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:37 am Post subject: |
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Bill, none of the photos came through. Could you email them to me at mwl @ montalvo . com(remove the spaces)? Also, can you tell me what you used for the upper and lower ball joint?
Thanks,
Mike Lydon |
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arbalest
Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 93 Location: Windham
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:39 am Post subject: |
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Bill, photos came through this time.
Mike |
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