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Steering arms

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Rut

Rut

Obi Wan
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I have a later disc brake set up on my Bugeye and the tie rod end nuts interfere with my wheels. The set that I'm replacing has the nut ground down enough to gain clearance, but leaves very little in the way of threads. I understand that there were different length steering arms on different Spridgets and was wondering if I could use shorter ones to help eliminate this problem and not screw up the geometry. If so, which ones? Thoughts?
Thanks, Rut
 
Not sure about the ones on the Spridgets having different lengths. They do have different size tie rod end attachment stud holes. The later Spridgets with the "Spitfire" type skinny racks have much smaller tie rod ends. I'd have to compare them side by side to see if the stud coming through the steering arms are shorter/smaller.

When I use the later Spridget arms on the race car with 1/2" RH Female heim joints, I'll put some shim washers between the arm and the stub axle to gain clearance from the larger brake rotors (we can use the 9.2" Spitfire). This probably also helps get clearance to the inside of the wheel. We use 1/2" bolts with the bolt head side up. This gains clearance too. IF the arm is closer inboard, then you might pick up some clearance. Most wheel rims tape from the mounting surface outward. The largest diameter of the wheel is at the inner bead. Doing this requires that you reset the toe-in for the front.

Any changes to the steering arrangement will change toe, bump-steer and probably the Ackerman affect. On the street, toe-in is the only really noticable change.

HTH,
Mike Miller
 
The difference is the size of the hole. Not the length/angle of the arm.
 
IIRC, the owner of these arms said that they were different sizes and I interpreted that as length. I also didn't realize that different racks used different size tie rod end bolts.
Thanks again, Rut
 
The later arms have AHA numbers like 9956,7 or 8 on them. They have 1/2" openings on the big taper side. I ream/drill the small bore side out to 1/2" so I can use a 1/2 bolt thru the arm and heim joint.

Some of those in the picture look like may even be the AHA ones.
 
From my experience, later steering arms definitely differ from earlier Frogeye/bugeye ones. I had exactly the same problem as you are having when I fitted "Minilites" to my frog. I phoned the wheel supplier who also breaks spridgets and he posted me a couple of arms from a Mk 2 midget, that solved the problem. The P.O. had converted to discs with wire wheel hubs, I converted back to studded wheels but used the same arms which were early (1959) ones, the later ones had a slightly different angle which solved the problem.
Graham.
 
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