Just a side note: WOW! All the "advice" I get from the Falcon Forum I belong to on Fake Book...pretty scary!!!! I think I have a source for an OEM one from a guy in North Dakota...
If you have the drill press you could use the castle nut as a guide for drilling, negating the need for a v-block.
That's an excellent idea...still waiting to hear from a guy near Charlotte that has tons of Falcon/Torino parts to see if he might have one. TCP did finally answer my question regarding using a washer or spacer and they said is is OK and they have used them in the past... They also said my long-lost universal joint was shipped (but no UPS tracking number....hhmmm?) yesterday...
Gee, it "only" took 6 weeks to get this...now to get that sucker mounted and actually drive my heap..!
Got it all installed today with just a couple very minor clearance issues to resolve (was sweating my header flange with the set screws for the universal joint that was on the steering box but it cleared by about 1/8th of an inch) and took it for a quick spin...certainly steers tighter. One of my long term mods will be to get an electric assist adjustable steering column to complete the "modern" feel of it, but that's way down on the list. My eyeball alignment wasn't quite so hot and I can now see both my wheels are toed-out a little. After a few more shake down runs I'll have to find someone who does the old style alignment though I can eyeball it pretty close. Now to see if the guy who's done some welding for me before can fab up and fix the gaping hole in my trans tunnel from changing to the correct transmission mount...? And then, and then...
The angle on the steering shaft is substantial! Do you feel the change in resistance as you rotate the wheel? You'd probably have to go lock to lock at a low speed in a big parking lot to really feel it, but the velocity of the lower shaft will alternate as the trunions pass through the shortest and widest angle. I'm curious if the install instructions offered any suggestions as to what position to orient the u-joint for straight ahead driving. That setup looks really good. Eventually, I'd like to do something similar to mine.
Actually, unlike a driveshaft where the joints have to be "in phase" to correctly work, a single Cardan joint should not have any appreciable problem turning as long as the lower shaft is set directly on the input shaft's center line. Any deviation from that center line would cause a problem.
Andy, I didn't say he has a problem. I am just curios if the reduction in torque transfer through the u-joint at that angle is noticeable at the steering wheel. Additionally, I wonder if the instructions tell to position the u-joint on the "slow" phase of the output side of joint when the wheels are straight ahead. I would expect this to provide the most stable steering response when you want the wheels to remain stable. A quick way to convince yourself of the reduction in torque through a u-joint at various angles is to take a driveshaft with a u-joint (or if you have a socket with built in universal) on one end, move the driveshaft to 90 degrees and observe that it's impossible to rotate the other end of u-joint by turning the driveshaft. The closer you move to centerline, the closer to 100% efficiency the joint becomes. Think Cos (theta) where theta is the angle of the ouput shaft relative to the input shaft. Theta is zero when input and output are on the same axis. Cos(0) = 1....or 100%. This is the angle where input velocity (or torque) equals output. Cos(90) = 0...this is where output velocity (or torque) is equal to 0% of input. The velocity on the output side of a u-joint is sinusoidal and varies with rotation angle of the shaft (not to be confused with the off-axis angle of the input shaft to output shaft). Matching the phase (on a shaft with multiple joints) sets the joints so that the phase of one end cancels the other. This requires the trunions be aligned on each end along with choosing compatible shaft angles (at each end). Below, is a plot of output shaft speed plotted for various shaft angles (the off axis angle of input vs output shaft). Each curve is labeled with the off-axis angle and the x-axis is the rotation angle of the shaft. Notice that in all cases, 90 degrees of rotation has the lowest response to input velocity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_joint#/media/File:UJoint1.png
Right. OK, I now understand and yes, you'd want it so that the straight-ahead position is the most stable, it also transmits the lowest amount of road reaction through the steering gear. I, personally, would like to keep my opposed thumbs intact.
I haven't notice any changes, it is very smooth and no binding. There were no instructions about phasing the universals and I did wonder about that but after waiting 6 weeks for the universal it slipped my aging mind and I slapped it on in haste. The only thing I notice "different" from the OEM steering (besides the very nice precision) is the steering radius is slightly decreased.
I'll measure the angle today just out of curiosity. I've noticed on a lot of cars with rack and pinion system the high angle of universals and have wondered how they actually felt like when steering? So, I should phase the universals as close as possible? I understand about driveshaft phasing but it really didn't register in my pea brain about applying that to steering... Honestly, adjusting the D shaft in the universals correctly was THE most difficult thing of the whole project for a one-armed bandit.
Considering that it's smooth and you're not noticing any variation in effort to turn the wheel, I doubt you'll gain much by optimizing the phase. If you do want to optimize, get the ears on each end of the shaft aligned and then rotate the shaft so the off axis angle is taken by one trunnion when the wheels are straight. I'm truly impressed with what you're able to do with one arm.
Not sure any phasing of the u-joint is going to be visible in the steering wheel. The peaks of the deviation will only appear during a 180-degree turn, not often encountered during normal driving. Choosing a different phasing won't fix it, will just shift the deviation sideways [relative to the graph of the turns] during a turn rotation.
