Early this evening I wrote:
> With no lateral inclination, castor would make the wheel move up
> with any steering, ruining straight-line stability.
The trouble with all of this is that it is too easy to think without
thinkin', if you know what I mean. The above statement makes an assumption
that is neither obvious nor valid for cars! I was thinkin' of that bicycle,
for which the steering axis runs down the centerline of the tire. Whether
the tire moves up or down with steering input depends on where the steering
radius is in its arc around the axis. On a car, with the tire offset to the
side of the the axis, straight-ahead steering usually means that it is near
the midpoint of its vertical movement. So with positive castor, steering
toward the side that the tire is on makes the wheel move down, and toward
the opposite side makes it move up. Hence (as I said in my original note),
the net effect is to make one tire go up and the other down. The only self-
centering this produces is that it loads your swaybars, but otherwise
contributes nothing.
I think I'm done now. Really.
Jim Muller
jimmuller@pop.rcn.com
'80 Spitfire (Percy)
'70 GT6+ (Nigel)
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