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Ok,
The dumb wquestion of the week here.
I was driving up to Prescott one day and very much enjoying the severely "serpentine" route--all the twists and turns. back and forth--a sports car lover's dream ride.
GREAT! But as I twisted and turned It gradually occurred to me that this road had NO GUARD RAILS and it was quite a sudden and rather long drop to the bottom.
So, it gave me pause and a kick in the tail to closely inspect all of my steering and front suspension. I found no problems. Everything seems tight and well lubed but I still wonder---
What are the chances of a sudden steering failure when making such regular twists and turns. I have these visions of turning the wheel to the left and then as I come back to the right there would be a sudden snap or bump and the steering wheel would simply spin freely to to the right while the wheels were pinted left and---over ya go!
The car steers well, tacks well when under weigh but there is a bit of wheel play when the car is stopped with the wheels pointed to the right(or left) --then I have quite a bit of play in the steering wheel. Going straight I notice very little play.
I know this can be adjusted but I also observe the coaution of "over adjusting."
Everything can fail. That's just the way things are. However, the odds of a catastrophic steering failure in your '62 are small. In all my years of watching C1s be vintage raced I've never witnessed any issues with steering components. If those cars don't experience failures, you almost certainly won't either.
As to the off-center steering slack you've noticed, that trait is designed into the the C1 steering boxes. Slack is zero (or nearly so) only in the straight ahead position.
I have thought of the same thing with our roads until I drove it down some fun roads to test the steering then realize it was good to go. Now, I did have to adjust the play in the steering wheel from time to time at the steering box. Now, the thing I would be more worried about is with my 2021 Ram etorque. That stupid thing went dead on me while driving back from my in-laws on I-5 to home with a deer carcus, deer head, hunting items and a rifle. That was not a fun experience because it was dead and the power steering went too. Nice! It only had 800 miles on the odometer when it happened. It was fun trying to explain the person on the uconnect that there is a deer in the back that is about to get spoiled (85 degrees at the time). There was a dealership about 10 miles away but I had to go further and UCONNECT would only take it to the nearest dealership so we would have had to take an uber home. How do I tell the uber driver? "Hey, where can I put this rifle and bloody deer head that just got validated?". It would not even start afterwards. I think I was just about to unload everything then I decided to try it once more. It fired up. I drove the rest of the way in limp mode to get it home. Next week, the truck spent its time at the dealership while I drove the corvette to and from work. Dont get bent out shape my insurance was fine with that part. Now, 6 months later there was a TSB regarding the this problem and it was fixed via a software update (go figure).
We were lucky that it did not happen while we were driving on a mountainous road. My corvette nope that would not have happened... I lose power so what? I can still brake and steer. Now, I would have to figure out why I lost power.
You would notice a problem before it fails completely. Plus it's all built for a much heavier car. The 49 Chevy..
Well, not to pick nits, but the internals of the C1 steering boxes are unique to Corvette.
I discovered this in what I consider to be an interesting way.
Years ago, the steering in my '60 developed the classic "notchy" feel, typical of the sector roller wheel chipping apart. I disassembled the box, removed the roller and took it (and only it) to a steering repair shop to see if there was anything they could do.
I set the roller wheel on the counter. Before I could even explain what I wanted, the guy behind the counter looked at it and said, "Oh, you've got an old Corvette!"
Jim,
I have never had the fortune to have BOTH a 49-54 pass car steering box and 53-62 Corvette steering box, side by side to compare the roller and the angle of the sector shaft bolt which goes through the roller. BUUUUUUUUUUUUUT, as I understand, the 2 holes for the sector shaft bolt are at different angles, which is what makes the difference between a pass car and a Corvette steering sector-roller-worm different. The worm is also probably a little different
Even though I own both (51 Chevy and 56 Vette), I AM NOT going to remove both, tear them down and compare the internals.
In the stock steering boxes, the turning ratio of the Vette box is a little faster than the pass car box.
Tom,
It's my long-held belief that the Corvette steering box has a quicker ratio than the passenger car version. One way to achieve that would be to make the Corvette worm larger and the Corvette sector roller smaller than their passenger car equivalents. If I were engineering quicker steering, it's how I would do it.
You know how large the Corvette worm is. I've seen other worms which were barely larger than the diameter of the steering shaft. Their application? Not a clue. But their small size is consistent with my theory about how slower passenger car steering is achieved.
You sure you won't tear apart that box in your 51 Chebby for the greater good of the Corvette community????
The only case I am aware of was a local C1 owner, but the car had Jim Meyer racing chassis 'upgrade'.
I don't know the details of who/how it was installed... but it failed catastrophically on a clover-leaf freeway on-ramp.
Heavy damage to the car but he walked away from it. Very lucky.
Ironic that was a "race-ready" chassis/steering that failed.. but as I say, I don't know the details.
It crossed my mind as well while running the 'Tail of the Dragon' back in 2021!
02-03-2024, 10:10 AM
'62 Steering Question
