Rack And Pinion
Rack And Pinion
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Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 34,526
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Rack and pinion:
Picture a bar with teeth with a round gear sitting in the middle of it.
_______________0______________
When you turn the gear, the bar moves one way or the other.
The bar is the rack, the gear is the pinion.
Enclose this in a housing, attach your steering wheel to the pinion and put your tie-rod ends at the end of the bar and you have rack and pinion steering.
This as become the standard for steering because as you can see, it's simple, and has fewer parts than the old style systems, and is much more precise. Some beefs have been it's lack of strength, which we can lay on the engineers and bean counters who don't beef it up for heavier applications, or who designed it poorly to start with (I'm thinking of Chevrolet)
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Other types of steering:
Worm and sector:
Picture half or a third of a geared wheel. Sitting on the wheel is gear cut like an auger, so that it engages several teeth on the geared wheel. As you turn the auger, it rotates the geared wheel one way or the other, depending on which way you turn. Attach your steering wheel to the auger, or worm, and a lever to the geared half wheel, (the sector) and you have the first part of worm and sector. The lever is called a Pitman (sp?) arm, and attaches to a drag link. The drag link attaches to a link on the king pin or spindle and serves to swing it one way or the other depending on which way you turn the steering wheel. The motion from that set of linkage is transferred to the other side by a tie rod.
Recirculating ball: Works somewhat similar to worm and sector, except the sector uses ball bearings instead of gear to gear contact.
You really need to see a diagram or exploded view. Some had a link to "how things work" on here, and you might be able to search by that.
If I am wrong on any of this, I'm sure more informed folks will flame me and whip me like a dog. You are warned not to build a steering device based only on my descriptions.
Picture a bar with teeth with a round gear sitting in the middle of it.
_______________0______________
When you turn the gear, the bar moves one way or the other.
The bar is the rack, the gear is the pinion.
Enclose this in a housing, attach your steering wheel to the pinion and put your tie-rod ends at the end of the bar and you have rack and pinion steering.
This as become the standard for steering because as you can see, it's simple, and has fewer parts than the old style systems, and is much more precise. Some beefs have been it's lack of strength, which we can lay on the engineers and bean counters who don't beef it up for heavier applications, or who designed it poorly to start with (I'm thinking of Chevrolet)
================================================== ====
Other types of steering:
Worm and sector:
Picture half or a third of a geared wheel. Sitting on the wheel is gear cut like an auger, so that it engages several teeth on the geared wheel. As you turn the auger, it rotates the geared wheel one way or the other, depending on which way you turn. Attach your steering wheel to the auger, or worm, and a lever to the geared half wheel, (the sector) and you have the first part of worm and sector. The lever is called a Pitman (sp?) arm, and attaches to a drag link. The drag link attaches to a link on the king pin or spindle and serves to swing it one way or the other depending on which way you turn the steering wheel. The motion from that set of linkage is transferred to the other side by a tie rod.
Recirculating ball: Works somewhat similar to worm and sector, except the sector uses ball bearings instead of gear to gear contact.
You really need to see a diagram or exploded view. Some had a link to "how things work" on here, and you might be able to search by that.
If I am wrong on any of this, I'm sure more informed folks will flame me and whip me like a dog. You are warned not to build a steering device based only on my descriptions.
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