ironing out the details

[Gene]

Stand in front of your car. Notice that if you draw a line through the top spindle mount through the bottom spindle mount that it lands more or less in the contact patch of the tire. That's good inclination.

Bad inclination is anything else.

In simple terms, Ackerman means that the outside tire turns tighter than the inside tire. That's because the outside tire must follow a different arc than the inside tire.

Use your daily driver as the example. Turn the tires fully to the right and then stand in front of the car and look at each tire. The tire to the right is turning more into the turn than the tire on the left. Now turn the wheels to the left and observe the opposite.

As the car makes a corner one wheel has a shorter distance to travel and the other wheel makes up for that with a tighter turning radius.

That's Ackerman.

If each tire turns equally then one tire is going to fight the other. You feel this as "PUSH". The car does not want to turn as easily as it would with Ackerman.

Add a live axle and PUSH is exacerbated.

Google Ackerman.

[millfab313]

that has to be the best short version of any explanation iv ever gotten and it finally makes sense thank you. so if im getting this the way I think I am I want the inside tire to turn sharper than the outside tire right. if my steering rack sits further out than perpandicaler of the a arms could that be part of my problem. I had a little bump steer until someone on here reccomened to flip my tie rods to the bottom and that helped but there is still a fair bit. could all this related?

[rowycoracing]

As Gene says good front end geometry is important. Also anytime you have a set up that does not include a differential your buggy will want to push. Most of these buggies don't have a diff so you just turn with the steering wheel and a heavy dose of throttle.

[Gene]

Could be.

Here's another observation you can make when looking directly down at the top of the spindle and observing how your tie rods relate to the spindle and wheel.

[millfab313]

so Im guessing every one is pretty much against the beam idea? I just need to keep tweaking the front end. there is just not a whole lot of adjust ability in it.

[rowycoracing]

Instead of going for major surgery on your buggy how about just sticking with the basic design and working out the bugs? In my experience all these buggies have a few bugs that need to be worked thorugh to get to a reliable performer. If you do a major redesign you may just have new wrinkles to worry about? Just food for thought...

[Gene]

Work out the bugs. Don't make new ones.

[millfab313]

ok Ive got some material to start tweaking the front end, youi guys have convinced me to stick with what I have. so moving on to the next problem. lets talk about brakes I have a hand brake that goes to my front brakes but I cant seem to bleed them to where they will work well when I bleed the foot pedal I blow out the resavoir on the hand brake and when I just removed the hand brake the brakes bled ok but they seem a little stiff and doesnt stop well. I included a drawing to try and give and an idea of what Im working with.

[Gene]

What are you using for a reservoir? Is the reservoir higher or lower than the bleeders on the calipers?

You may need a larger reservoir and possibly an inexepensive air bleeder kit from Harbor Freight.

[millfab313]

for the set up I started with the resovoir was the large pedal style dual resevoir and the hand brake was from the gixxer foot brake. ill get some pictures next