Update by Tim Suddard to the
Chevrolet Corvair Monza Spyder project car
Mar 1, 2013
Since finishing our car, we have been dissatisfied with the steering. Like most American cars of the era, the worm-and-roller steering is slow and has a disconcerting dead spot in the center. Installing quick steering arms a while back helped this, but driving down the highway or trying to corner quickly showed us the Corvair’s Achille’s heel.
To solve this problem we ordered a quick ratio steering box from Clark’s Corvair Parts. Made by Flaming River, this box was supposed to not only be new—which would be better than the original steering box that we had on the car—but would also be quicker with a 16:1 ratio. This would take the steering from about 5.5 turns lock to lock to just over 4 turns.
There are stock steering arms, original quick-steering arms and then Clark’s sells even quicker steering arms. Clark’s does not recommend their super quick steering arms with this quicker-than-stock steering box.
We already had some of the factory quick steering arms and found that when combined with the new steering box, the steering was much improved. The dead spot in the center was much smaller—but not totally eliminated—and we could still handle low-speed maneuvers like parking with relative ease.
| Get all the latest of our classic projects in your mailbox six times a year. Subscribe now. |
View all comments on the CMS forums
You'll need to log in to post.
