TH407C Telehandler 1:14 scale

[Blender]

while i'm here I did rough in the front steering. Not really fan of how it looks. Works OK, but the M2 rod ends are very sloppy.


This got me thinking.... can i make the steering more scale. Full size machine uses full hydro steering. I won't like the way that drives, so I need to keep servos. Looking at swapping in rack and pinion steering to kind of mimic full hydro look. Rack gears can be bought at SDP-SI. Their metric flavors are lacking, but English size is OK. Might as well build a scale inner tie rod to omit the sloppy rod end. Had to test this part out to verify I can do it. Pinion will mount to a servo horn and be cut down to a sector gear.





3mm ball bearing drilled/reamed to 1.5mm at ~2.2mm depth in the lathe. Welded to a stub of stainless rod. Sits in a socket cut using a 3mm ball ended endmill. Makes a nice fit. Rack is 0.25in diameter. The have smaller diameter, but it doesn't play nice with the 3mm ball size. I'm not sure i can go any smaller than 3mm. Rear will be improved a lot with this. Less bump steer and easier to assemble.

Will need a chassis rebuild to fit. Need to recut the chassis to get the Leimbach pump bolted down anyway. Will make a couple other tweaks at the same time. Nothing like almost starting over