Has anyone ever had, seen, or heard of a Speedster with the steering column turned upside down to lower the wheel?
My dad's 1919 Speedster had the column mounted upside down, and I was just curious if anyone has any experience with this set-up, as I'm planning to do some work to get the car back on the road after many years in storage as parts. The face of the reverse pedal had to be cut off so the pedal would pass the column, but not sure what other mods were made. Thanks.
Fail to see the advantage. Would not be able to use the firewall mounting flange without extreme modification. Lower mount would be on the wrong side. Pictures?
The car's not in my possession yet, so I can't provide any photos other than my profile pic, which doesn't show any detail. It does show the lower angle of the column and the relative lower position of the steering wheel.
I'll keep updating the forum with photos as I go, but it'll be a process, to be sure...
I know someone who moved the T-steering gears down closer to the frame and just had a shaft in the drivers position, column housing stays in place.
I can't see how that would lower the wheels. It might raise the position of the connection point to the steering connector rod but lower the wheels? I could be wrong, but you would need to do a lot more than that to lower the wheels, such as modify the spindles and spring perches. Jim Patrick
Oh... I think you mean lower the steering wheel, NOT the front wheels. LOL! Sorry. My bad. It's early. I should have waited for my first cup of coffee before opening the forum. Jim Patrick
I did see once where someone had relocated the lower mount above the frame. Lowered the wheel quite a bit and didn't need to change location of hole in firewall. Wish I'd saved a picture.
So, with the steering column upside down, do you turn left to go right? Do you push up on the left lever to accelerate, and down on the right lever to retard the spark? It would seem to me to be very confusing to drive.
Norm
After looking at your picture in PROFILE, I must say that column has a nice drop to it. Love to see some photos of inside fire wall to get an idea how that was done as I'm in the process of mounting my steering column back soon in my Faultless project. Jimmy
This is how that "other guy" did it... troop
[IMG]http://i48.tinypic.com/29bn0wk.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i47.tinypic.com/2eyz72a.jpg[/IMG]
This lowered the wheel almost 4 inches
Thanks for the posts. I'll get photos up when I can, but it'll be awhile. I'll get the car and begin the cleaning/re-assembly process in the spring, but for now I want to do as much research and acquire as much education as I can between now and then so I can hit the ground running. I've already found a wealth of invaluable information here on the forum, and am most appreciative of everyone who contributes t this forum in any way. It's amazing the amount of knowledge I've found on this forum that I'm certain will make the process enjoyable. Thanks again!
Here are a couple of books that tells a lot about how they built speedsters back in the day:
http://www.modeltford.com/item/P8.aspx
http://www.modeltford.com/item/P3.aspx
You can also get a lot of info about speedsters at the Northwest vintage speedsters site: http://www.nwvs.org/Technical/Technical.shtml
How about some old codgers showing kids how to build one from scratch without the judges drooling over their; shoulders? troop
http://www.scvmtfc.org/lghs_speedster/lghs_speedster.html