Steering Components
2023-24
This season, I focused on welding the various components for the E-Car's steering system including the steering column (left) and the column support (right). The column support was later welded onto the lower roll hoop.
2022-23
I was the Design Lead for the Driver Controls subsystem this season, so I got to redesign some pieces of the steering system and then get to manufacture them myself! This included welding the steering column support and machining new pinion gear blanks that were sent out to a sponsor to have the gears cut into them.Â
Below (top left) is a picture of the weld setup for the lower column support using some perfectly adequate wood fixture blocks and careful metal placement for grounding. Below that (bottom left) is a pair of U-joints that we used in the steering in the steering column that needed to be welded together at the correct alignment to ensure consistent rotation between the steering wheel and the rack and pinion. I used heat-sink paste while welding to absorb some of the heat so that the rubber casings and internals of the joints were not affected. Beside that (right) is the pinion gear shown while the blank was being machined and then again after with gear teeth!
This is a picture of what our steering system looked like all put together for the 2022-23 cars like starting with the upper column down to the double U-joints, then lower column, and finally into the rack and pinion. The upper column is held onto the roll hoop with the upper column support, and the lower column is secured with the lower column support.