Clod steer

[Saito2]

I'm going to preface this with the following are my observations over the decades in dealing with Clod Busters and I fully expect to be told or proven to be wrong. With that bit out of the way, here we go. I'm just a blue collar mechanic after all.

For as long as there were Clod Busters, there was the question, why does my stock Clod seem to turn with the rear wheels only when driving but all four wheels turn if I pick it up?

In the 1:1 world, there's issues like caster angle to deal with but that's not really something pertinent to stock Clods. However, when driving a car in reverse or a better example, a fork lift, the vehicle turns sharper with the steering input coming from the rear. From what I see, that's because the pivot point of a turning vehicle is in line with the rear wheels. It also makes it easier for a Clod's rear wheels to turn when going forward (the opposite is true when going in reverse, especially with the Clod's symmetrical design).

So why don't the front wheels want to turn, no matter how powerful the steering servo is? Well, its the stock spring-loaded axle mounted servo saver that are to blame. The size and weight of the Clod's massive meats overwhelm them.

In the picture above, I have done a lot of mucking about with the steering linkage to ensure full lock front steering and just a tiny bit of rear steer for assist. That includes things like: moving the linkages on the holes at the axle bell cranks and (with a new servo horn) moving the rear steering rod hole as close to the servo center hole as possible while moving the front steering rod hole farther away. With the strong HD servo added, all should be good right? Not quite.

The truck still ran with predominantly rear steer, even more than pictured which should seem impossible as the linkage now limits its throw greatly.

Well after chasing after the truck in motion with video trained on the rear steering servo save bell crank, I was able to see the culprit in action. The linkage would stop, but the servo saver spring (set to factory specs) would compress and allow the wheels to keep turning until they hit their stops on the axle tubes. At the front, even though the top of the bell crank saw full throw, the compressed servo saver spring muted the input and the wheels were pushed straight. In simple terms its easier to pull Clod tires through a turn than push them into it.

So with the servo savers locked down we have this:

That's full lock at the front with just a tiny but from the rear.  I use a double ended Kimbrough HD servo saver directly on the servo now. Granted, any flex or slop in the linkages doesn't help but for the most part, this works. Problem solved (at least for those that want to retain the stock steering arrangement).

[Mouc-RC]

Very easy to read & informative

Until now, it never bothered me that my Juggernaut behaves exactly the same, but I know what to do now if I want to . Oh yes, Juggernauts behave the same, steering wise

[MadAnt]

Here is the fix, the plastic bellcrank will fail.

The rest of the issues is from the flexibility of the plastics.