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Friday, April 15, 2016

Ackermann , was a real dude.

200 years ago George Lankensperger and his pal Rudolph Ackermann ..

It's not rocket surgery, and I ain't no brain scientist


But come on. The early Ford front end is a thing of simple beauty. Follow the design and
it works so well.

Copied this from Wikipedia,

The intention of Ackermann geometry is to avoid the need for tires to slip sideways when following the path around a curve.[2] The geometrical solution to this is for all wheels to have their axles arranged as radii of circles with a common center point. As the rear wheels are fixed, this center point must be on a line extended from the rear axle. Intersecting the axes of the front wheels on this line as well requires that the inside front wheel is turned, when steering, through a greater angle than the outside wheel. [2]
Rather than the preceding "turntable" steering, where both front wheels turned around a common pivot, each wheel gained its own pivot, close to its own hub. While more complex, this arrangement enhances controllability by avoiding large inputs from road surface variations being applied to the end of a long lever arm, as well as greatly reducing the fore-and-aft travel of the steered wheels. A linkage between these hubs pivots the two wheels together, and by careful arrangement of the linkage dimensions the Ackermann geometry could be approximated. This was achieved by making the linkage not a simple parallelogram, but by making the length of the track rod (the moving link between the hubs) shorter than that of the axle, so that the steering arms of the hubs appeared to "toe out". As the steering moved, the wheels turned according to Ackermann, with the inner wheel turning further.[2] If the track rod is placed ahead of the axle, it should instead be longer in comparison, thus preserving this same "toe out".

The builder told me, "some like the look"
There is so much wrong in this picture.. and I just don't like the look of a poorly executed front end

I'll just start typing..
the tie rod out front does not allow proper Ackermann,
I wouldn't want to drive it on wet street
the extensions to bolt on the upper a arms are a weak link
Ford tie rod ends are meant to mount from underneath, nuts on top
A tube axle and hairpins don't work together, the tube axle does not flex like a I beam axle does
So something will give way eventually (crack- break)
Friction shocks are marginal at their best. The attachment needs to be at the axle, where the suspension has the most movement, mounted behind like this they can't do their job.
(controlling compression and rebound)
Some sort of cross steer going under the hairpin?
I don't see a panhard bar in there either .( Guessing adapters on the wire wheels, messes with the
scrub radius )
So it looks cool? not to me. I'm sure it rides bad (shocks)
and it can't corner good ( Ackermann)  and I'd bet the steering wheel doesn't want to return to center.
like it should.  But hey it's got radials  ( never mind the looks there)


Getting all preachy
below is a sample picture of a correctly set up front end.
 Here is some more reading for you. Good ol' Hot Rod Magazine
http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/interior-electrical/0902sr-science-of-straight-axles/

Ford I beam axle can handle nice. And be fun to drive.




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