| The steering set-up on the standard Fury is entirely conventional kit-car
fare. The upper column's from a Sierra, the rack's from an Escort MkII, there's an intermediate column between
them, and at the top of the upper column there's generally a steering wheel. Originally, I had planned to do exactly
this on my car, but I was then inspired by the marvellous work done by the Beardmore Bros and the home-made
steering column on their hill-climb Morris Minor. This was made using straight CDS tubing, a mil-spec UJ and some
off-the-shelf bearings. Prodding me in the direction of DIY was my desire to have a paddle shift *and* steering wheel mounted buttons *and* stalks for the indicators and lights. Trying to get the gear paddles and light stalks to play nicely together was going to be hard - getting it all working while having a length of flexy wire wrapped round it would be something else entirely. So I decided to make it myself, having a CDS inner column, and an outer column with provision for mounting light stalks (with auto-cancelling indicators) and a gear paddle. |
This is the outer column. It's made up from three parts - the end
pieces that the bearings go into and the middle part which is simply a length of ali tube turned down inside and
out. The ends are an interference fit on the tube although I ended up welding the bottom one into place as it
wasn't quite as secure as I wanted it to be.
The bottom part (to the left) has M8 tapped holes for mounting the column to the scuttle tube on the chassis.
The part at the top has mounts for the stalks (the ones with the tapped holes), and also blocks for the gear shift
paddles to be mounted onto. The hole in the tubing is for the indicator cancellation bit of the column stalk to
poke through.
 |
This is the top part of the inner column in the process of being made.
The column itself is made of 7/8" CDS tubing, and the sleeves are 1" stainless tubing which the 1"
ID needle bearings go around. At the business end there's the QR boss - this is a Lifeline unit which comes pre-wired
with an 8-way electric connector, which will allow me to have the steering wheel buttons fitted without the hassle
of flexy curly wires wrapping themselves round everything. Most of the column I TIG welded rather than MIG'd (it's neater) and any mission critical welds (like the QR boss onto the steering column) I pinned as well. I pinned the joints by drilling a small (3mm-ish) hole through the two parts, and then hammering a nail (easy source of thin bits of hardened steel) through, chopping the ends of the nail off, and welding the ends over. |
| This is the trial fit of the whole thing before painting the column.
On the larger version of the picture (click on the small picture on the right) you can just about see the orange
rubber seal of the UJ. This will be held in place by 4 M5 bolts, two on the top half of the column and two on
the bottom half. The bottom of the intermediate column is joined to the steering rack via a Grp IV steering knuckle,
a section of splined shaft from Rally Design and a machined sleeve to go around the slined shaft and inside the
CDS tubing. I've now painted the steering column sections. The last thing to do is make up some dust guards for the bearings, and fit it. Of course, it'll have to come off again once the bodywork has arrived and it's time to fit that, but that can wait for now. |
 |