Easy to shorten, but also easy to buy a aftermarket one from Rod & Custom Components, they're ADR Approved, tilt, wired and come in different lengths..
What options are there to change the mounts for the steering column rather then the column itself. Sounds like you can move the whole wheel and column forward 175mm. Would meet up to your steering box on the chassis and move the wheel straight away from your chest. You’ve done a heap of thinking on this so I’m probably missing something.
Found this on the net. Out of interest, it is ADR 10A - all cars manufactured on/after 1 January 1971 required collapsible columns. There's a lot of information on steering columns online. Once you hear back from your engineer.
Every big modification creates a smaller but more complex modification. Doing well there. keep it up as at times the motivation can lack. Love the work.
Mate irrespective it's still looking great. Very solvable problem. I'm looking at putting a 40s truck cab on a lwb cut to mwb gq chassis so really like seeing possible issues to watch out for. Sorry for your pain but it's helpful!
Apologies for not knowing your regulations down there but up here in Scotland when I've dealt with this on Land Rover based vehicles we use the original column as is and remount it where it needs to be on new mounts. It's the intermediate shaft that we modify to join the column back to the steering box. We've done this to fit an epicyclic gearset to act as a steering quickener to help reaction times when racing and to suit some of the hybrid things we build, we try not to cut and weld shafts as pretty much all the parts are available off the shelf at Summit Racing in the USA.
See your getting a lot of ideas sent to you, thought I'd throw in another, understand you want to keep the right angle and still have the wheel set back, when left hand drive cars are converted for Australia, they use multiple universals, in engineering for steel manufacturing obviously universal joint and couplings are used all the time, so strength isn't a problem, couldn't this also be rigged using unis to get your angle and setback into a proper position, just need to ensure holding brackets are place correctly. Anyways well done so far. Hope goes well.
Love this build! I am restoring a 1970 Datsun truck using 1995 d21 suspension. Just added EPS from a 2011 LEAF. I merged the original steering with a rack n pinon. Have you considered EPS?
I hope your making Nissan noises and bouncing on the milk crate while your sitting there driving. Also, those wheels are a bit small Nick.🙂🙂🙂 All jokes aside, also look at your ability to bail out in a hurry is something goes sideways.
