Steering Types ft. Arturo Campos

In this episode we have Arturo Campos on to chat about steering types and components. Be sure to listen in on how the movement gets transferred from the steering wheel to the actual wheels. 

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Transcript

0:08

Welcome to the Talking with the School of Transportation podcast, presented by Centennial College. With your hosts, Ian Campbell and Hornet Gill. Let's get into it now. Welcome to the Talking with SOT podcast. Uh really? Is that is that what it's gonna be? Is that a problem? It's season three. So it's season three now, and we haven't really discussed this with anybody else, but a couple students came up to me and they're like, your name sucks. And I was like, what? Ian Campbell. It's a great name. Hey, hey now. Hey, my father gave me that. Um no, the talking with SOT podcast. They said it's too long and and not catchy enough. So they they want us to rename the podcast. What do you think about that, Harnick? Hmm. Well, we could put it up to uh public vote. Oh, you think? Well, there was a uh I think we get the ultimate vote, though. I think we I think we get the ultimate vote. We need the vote. We don't want to end up being Bodhi McBoatface. What is that? So in the UK, they allowed people to vote for the name of a brand new sub, and the public by in mass voted for Bodhi McBoatface. So our podcast will not be potty podcasts, but um the potty I don't know about that, the potty podcast. Yeah, no, not happening. Yeah. Uh I will say Philip from our level three group right now, uh, threw Fuel for Thought. And I was like, hmm, that's not too bad, but uh let's see what everybody else has got. Don't use Chat GPT, use your brains, be creative. Yeah, let's see what's going on. So we'll put it to you, the listener. Either do your standard yell at us down the hall saying, Sir, or send us an email, which I already know is never gonna happen. Yeah, that's true. I haven't got any emails about the podcast yet. We've been doing this for two years plus, and uh, and yeah, no emails. So maybe, maybe somebody can email me just about the podcast to make me happy. You heard him. He wants emails, folks. Oh boy, send them. Maybe, maybe. Here comes the phishing. Um, yeah, the phishing schemes. Anyways, we have a fun one today. We have a uh new person on the podcast, so we're gonna have to remember those questions for the end. Oh. Um, but we have Arturo Campos here. Welcome, Arturo. Hello, hello, thank you for having me. So, who are you? My first question. Who am I? Uh I was a student here once back in 2007. I did the FCA program, graduated in 09, uh, been in the trades since, and I got an opportunity to come teach at the college uh September 2023. So I've been here since and working part-time at the shop. Nice. And how do you like it? Uh different world. Definitely a different world. Just went a different world. Different world. Different world. Um, you know, we all know what shop life is like. And then when you come to a college, it's completely different. So uh just to get myself mentally prepared, uh, getting ready to teach was the biggest obstacle. Not to say that I've, you know, have a full grasp on it. Grasp, yeah, exactly. Grasp on it. Uh, but I've been doing well so far. And luckily, with the help of you guys, particularly and other faculty members, it's been a pleasant uh time here so far. Yeah, it's fun. It's it's the best job in the world if you if you like people. Yeah. If you don't like people, it's terrible. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of people, but I still like the job. Yeah, I don't know if all my students count as people. Wow. Well, at least according to D'Amico. Oh man. The students know what I'm talking about. Yeah, especially Axel. Yeah, yeah. Hey Axel, you got that shadow you kept asking for. That's true. Um, and what have you been teaching lately? Uh lately I've been doing a lot of SSB. Okay. So level one stuff, level two stuff. Uh, but I've done other courses, uh Tritrains, uh CFQ, yeah, apply, apply mechanical courses. So whatever's given to me. What's your favorite thing about a vehicle? Or that you had to teach about a vehicle? Ooh. I mean, coming with the background of in transmission tech, um, manual transmission. I always find it fun. Okay. Um, you know, when you start getting into automatics, you kind of lose some of the students with some of the terminology. You're a good teacher. Um I'm kidding. I teach the automatics. That's what I'm saying. Uh, but manual, it's just every every every young student wants to drive a manual car. And they just, you know, they understand that it needs to go into first gear, second gear, third gear, but they don't understand the actual movements of what components actually engage it all and how gears are slowed down for you to select the specific gear that you're choosing. So uh, but when we talk about it in class and then we get into the lab, and the lab is where it brings everything out and it shows them how exactly it works. It's not just a uh case with magic inside, it actually brings the gears into focus and you can see through it. So it's yeah. Um, but did you teach SSB level one? And Harnick, you're uh the resident SSB block teacher, I believe, right? I am. I teach SSB block level one. So let's start with that first S, which is steering. Steering Steering components, right? So level one, you just kind of uh identify and and see what's happening with it, and then level two, you kind of break it down a bit more. So let's let's talk about level one. Level one is focused on the linkage types and individual components, and then level two, how do we get assisted steering? And we talk a little bit more about the components involved with that. So you've you've taught the SSB level one linkage types. I usually start off by sort of just listing the linkage types to the students. Yeah. Um, so when we look at our linkages, we got our parallelogram type linkage, which sometimes just that word alone confuses the crap out of students. I put on a quiz years ago rhombus linkage, and the sheer number of students never use the term in the class ever, who picked rhombus linkage. Yeah. Um you always catch that one or two students that will. Oh no, it was more than that. So parallelogram type linkage. And then the most common today by far are rack and pinion. Yeah. And then we are common to encounter drag link type linkages. Yep. And is there anything else? Yeah, there's one more. Haltenberger. Haltenberger. Or Ford's twin I-beam type linkage. Yeah. And it's in the name there. It's primarily used by Ford. Most of your other manufacturers are not using that type of linkage, so it's kind of niche. Yeah. So what would the like, let's go back in history a little bit. What would be the first historical steering linkage that you might see? Or more of the older style. The more classic, sure. The parallelogram type linkage was on an independent front suspension, the type of linkage you're gonna see. And that's kind of key to remember there. A parallelogram type linkage will work with an independent front suspens uh suspension, not really solid axles. Um, so it is one of the more complicated ones just because there's more components. So I like to start with parallelogram type linkages. Um yeah, I agree. That's um because there's more to talk about it because of all the you know, this the center link and uh the isler arm. And then you start breaking it down a little bit when you start looking at how many possibilities are there for components to wear on it. So if you start thinking about it, well, outer tie rods, that's two on each side, inner tie rods, the isler arm, the Pittman arm side. So you do have multiple errors that can actually fail on those. Yeah, and if you ever heard the term grease job and oil change, on those uh steering steering systems, that grease job was really imperative, to be honest. Yeah. So because of all the the joints and the movement. Absolutely. And the failure rates of the components were much higher. It was common to replace a Pittman arm every 40,000 kilometers. The components just didn't last long, particularly if they hadn't been greased. Right? So on our modern cars, we we sort of move away from a linkage like that because there's more wear items. Let's uh let's kind of break down the parallelogram. I want to start, sorry, I want to start with one thing, and that's defining what is the linkage. Okay. Just kind of simply. The linkage is the components that connect the there's a little bit of a difference, the textbook definition, and then how we look at it as mechanics. The textbook definition is the components that connect the steering wheel to the road wheels, which then would include your column, intermediate steering shaft, and in some cases the gear box as well. Whereas we kind of look at it is the components in between the gear and the road wheels. So we don't tend to include basically, yeah. Yeah, and we tend to not include the box, intermediate steering shaft, and column, but they are also all at play as well. Yeah, I agree. Uh sometimes we just when you know when we talk about it, we start from the steering wheel, then it goes through the column, intermediate shaft, gearbox, and then it goes to the actual steering linkages. But I feel like sometimes the students focus on that being just the input side of it. But the output side, we I really like that. Yeah, like the output and output. So we focus a little bit more on the actual steering component. Like I do talk about all the other components in between, what actually makes the the steering linkages move. But I know we talked more about it in level two, so I just you know brush up a little bit on it so they have an idea of what components are inside a steering gear box, but I let them know when you come back for level two, we are taking these apart uh racking pinions as well. So yeah. Uh that input and output is brilliant, to be honest. And you think of that with electrical or hydraulics or anything. If you that's how I know you're a transmission teacher, you're like input-output. Yeah, well amazing. It was good, and you can just have that break point, and then the output is the actuator part of it. And and if and I know uh being a transmission teacher lately, you have to come up with like ways that people can think. And if you can take that input output, it'll it'll really help. So sometimes I mean we're so used to using certain term terminologies that uh yeah, you gotta find creative ways to kind of get everybody to to understand what you're trying to explain. Yeah. So if we look at a parallelogram type linkage, so we'll start at the output of the gearbox, which is what component? I mean, I would say Pittman arm at that point. So how is it how is it mounted? Generally, the Pittman arm will be splined onto the gearbox itself, and then you'll have maybe a 42 millimeter nut that actually holds it in place, but you gotta make sure you torque that down. And then following that, then it's just gonna be another linkage from the over center link. And now that over center link has to be as straight as possible, parallel with the lower control arms when there's weight on it. Uh, but because we don't have anything holding the opposite side of that bar, that's where we now need an isler arm to support the opposite side of that linkage. And then you have your inner and outer tie rods now that are connected to that center link. And then as we move the wheels left and right, it moves that pitman arm so fast. So fast. So fast. No, no, no. This is great. I'm gonna I'm gonna break it down a little bit. Yeah, but okay. So you start you started with your your Pittman arm, and then you went to your idler arm with the center link in the middle, and you kind of make like a joint there, right? That's the starting point. That's the starting point, yeah. And it's braced on both sides, right? Yes, yeah, with that either arm and Pittman arm. So in between the sector shaft and the center link, that's where you have an important part of the linkage, and that's a ball stud or a ball socket. Same as what you'd find on a ball joint or a tie rod. That's pretty critical because it's going to allow for flexing and movement of the joint. When you're driving your vehicle, as we are well aware, for anyone who's driving on our Scarborough roads into campus, there's no perfect roads. So as you're going over bumps and dips in the road, the steering linkage has to be able to shift and wiggle around a little bit without moving your road wheels. The ball sockets are gonna allow for that to happen. So your Pittman arm is spline to the sector shaft on one side. That's a physical connection, and then there's a ball stud between the sector shaft and the center link, and that's gonna allow for some flexing of the joint. Uh, and your idler arm is uh affixed to the frame on one side, and then when it's affixed to the center link, again there's another ball socket that allows for that flexing of the linkage. Yep. One of the things that it's not too common, but some manufacturers do. I have I have seen it uh when servicing vehicles in the private shop is there are pitman arms that are just a chunk of steel and there's no ball socket in it. Have you guys seen that before? Yes. So if the ball socket isn't in the Pittman arm, where is it? Because I have to have some kind of ball socket to allow for some flexing of the joint. So if it's not in the Pittman arm, where would it be? It had to be on the center link. Yeah, so there you have a center link that's actually serviceable and wares. Normally you look at a center link and it's just a chunk of metal, like oh it's a bar. It's not too complicated. With a hole in the middle. Yeah, with a hole in the middle, exactly, right? So i if the Pittman arm is just a chunk of metal, then the ball socket is in the center link, and the center link is the serviceable component. A little bit oddball, but some manufacturers did use that. And for that Pittman arm and center link, you can use a lot of heat on that, right? Just torch that bad boy right on up. There goes the output uh seal on that uh steering box. Steering box. Yeah, so or just an air hammer on there, right? Well, it's kind of like I explained like this there's two gears inside or two shafts with gears inside the box. Now imagine someone took an air hammer to your teeth. What would happen? They'd shatter, right? Or a big hammer to it. So you do have to be pretty careful. Um, what tool would you use to remove the Pittman arm? Uh, there is a polar tool, and generally that tool can be used for maybe your ball joints as well. So it's just a claw that goes right around the actual uh Pittman arm, and then it just pushes against the sector shaft part of it, and as you you know, either use a socket and do it by hand so you don't really you know cause too much vibration. But we know some techs will just get their impact gun and just gun it, just trying to get it off. Uh but generally that tool does work. So that tool is literally called a Pittman arm puller, and I always say it's the big brother of the wiper arm puller. So if you know what a wiper arm puller is, you know what a pitman arm puller is. Yep. Now, how many times has your wiper arm puller failed to get the wiper arm off? Also known as a two-jaw puller. Two jaw puller, yeah. That's all it is. But wasn't that tool actually made for the battery terminals? Some of them are, but you can get you can get ones for the wiper arms specifically. That's a jaw puller, and now many times I'd find that it's not gonna do the job. You keep tightening it, you're eventually gonna damage the shaft. Same thing with the sector shaft. You get something high mileage that's been on there forever, that puller's not pulling it off. So you just heat it up, right? Well, I'm kidding. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You kind of got two options. You could remove the box and take it to the press, which that's a lot of work and probably not the best. Or what you actually do is you're gonna get your die-cutter, cut a slot into the Pittman arm. This is if you're replacing the Pittman arm, okay? You're gonna cut just I gotta say, I gotta say big disclaimer. When you cut a slot in the Pittman, Pittman, you're cutting a slot into the Pittman arm. You don't go right down to the metal, but you get it nice and thin, you put a chisel in there, you just give it a little bit of a whack, the metal's gonna spread, and you just pull that. And then you weld it back together, and then you put it back on. Yeah, here you go, sir. So at that point, of course, it's garbage. So sloppy. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because I had to do that a couple months ago on a vehicle where the Pittman arm wasn't coming off. It doesn't matter what I did. And I just remember, you know, when I'm taking off uh if I'm doing a differential rebuild, and sometimes the pressed in tapered bearing on the pinion side, you use the tool to properly pull it off, and then everything the cage comes off with it. So now what? What do you do? So I always cut it, I cut a slit in it just enough that I get close to the center of it and then chisel, little tap, breaks free. Piece of cake, right? Works well. Awesome. Uh so that's the Pittman arm. Uh does the idler arm need service ever? Idler arms are also components with ball sockets in it, so they can fail. Right. Absolutely. Um what what would be the check for that then? So there's a couple ways to check it. You'd uh obviously basic disclaimer, check what your manufacturer says. For sure. But generally the way you're gonna check an idler arm is you're gonna perform a dry park test. Dry park test. The way I look at it, if you start looking at all the ball studs or ball and sockets that a parallelogram has, how do we check all of them at once? So performing a dry park test has to be on level ground. Uh nobody, you know, if it's a rainy day, nobody's gonna crawl underneath a vehicle outside. So you can't lift it up on a hoist because then you're you know, all the tension is off the components. So generally you will end up using your alignment machine or the ramp hoist, whatever you want to call it, and then have your apprentice or another tech that's jumping into the vehicle. And the way I talk about it in class, you put your hands at 11 and 1 o'clock, and all we're trying to do is shimmy the car left and right just to get the steering linkages to move. That way, while the technicians underneath inspecting, you know, the idler arm or in and outer tie rods, at least we're able to see if there's any play in these components. Yeah, some of the components like an idler arm actually need to be preloaded with a certain amount of force when checking it. Correct. Right. So some of your manufacturers do stipulate the amount of force. And if you have a little pull scale, you can apply the exact amount of force that the manufacturer stipulates on that component to see if there's an excess amount of free play. So without any force on it, it may look like the component is loose. Once you apply the correct amount of force, then you can see whether it is actually worn out or not. Um the dry park test, very good test to go over your suspension and steering components. Um easiest to do on a pickup truck, let's face it, because you can just crawl right under. Yep. Um, that being said, valid test for any vehicle out there. Yeah. Any steering set any type of steering system, anything that works well. And I guess one final thing I'll say about the dry park test is the default position is from the 11 turning from 11 to 1 o'clock back and forth. You have to modify the test to your concern. So if the customer concern is there's a clunk noise, but the clunk only happens at the end of steering wheel travel all the way to the right, turn your steering wheel all the way to the right. Move back and forth. At first, you might want to move back and forth um smoothly, like not too fast. And then you may want to go back and forth rapidly. So you have to change up the test to fit the situation because not every car is going to fail in the exact same manner, and the faults may not be present in the uh way you're doing a basic test. So you do have to modify the test a little bit until you can verify the customer concern because that's what we're trying to do. Yeah, every every customer is like you said, every customer is gonna come in with a different description of what noise to hear, whether the steering wheel was in the lock position or halfway. Um, and sometimes we're there trying to duplicate this concern. And, you know, sometimes as a flat rate technicians, we're you know, we're rushing a little bit trying to get the card done, but taking that time to, you know, try different scenarios, maybe get a little bit more information, but you're right, you have to um you have to take your time with it and try different different scenarios like you're mentioning. And then you leave the apprentice up in the car and go for lunch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's his problem now. All right, so we've talked about the Pittman arm, the the either arm, the center shaft or the center link. Uh what's beyond that then? Okay, so we have our inner tie rods. Inner tie rods, and then you have an adjuster sleeve. Okay, and then you have your outer tie rods. Now, again, the inner tie rods to connect to the center link, ball socket. Yep. Okay, so every component to the knuckle to the knuckle. So you have, as Arturo mentioned earlier, so many more frictional contact points. So, which means the more points I have, the more points of failure I have. Yep. Um one of the benefits of the parallelogram type linkage is you can adjust individual toe. So you can adjust a right side and left side toe individually of each other, like what we expect on most of our modern cars. But the main downside here is all those additional components I have, you know, once upon a time, it wasn't too uncommon to replace your Eidler arm and Pittman arm every 50k. Sometimes even early. Than that. And for technicians, hey, that was great news. It's keeping us busy. There was work to do. Right. But in terms of cost of vehicle ownership, that was higher than what we have on our modern linkages. Okay. Modern linkages. Uh, what would that look like then, Arturo? So more modern, we are now talking about what is more mass produced based on uh it's not as complicated as a parallelogram. Uh less components. Uh cost efficiency is the most thing that manufacturers look at, and that'll be the rack and pinion. And I'd like to say the benefit of the rack and pinion is it's modular. Okay, and what that means is all the components are sort of integrated together. So rather than having a separate Pittman arm, Idler arm, inner outer tie rod, and the center link, you kind of mesh these components into one assembly. Including power steering when you get to level two. Absolutely. That rack and pinion works so easy. Exactly. You have assist directly at like the gear. You're right. That's what I want to say. The gear is also incorporated into the assembly as well. That's your rack and your pinion. That those are your gears. Um, so the benefit of the rack and pinion is it's modular design, it's compact, it doesn't take a lot of space, and it works really good with our independent front suspensions. Absolutely. What checks do you do on uh on a rack and pinion then? Would you do the same dry park test? You can absolutely do the same dry park test. Yeah, absolutely. The dry park test is for any any steering system that you have. Uh, we're checking for any play, especially inner and outer tie rods that are generally the only things that we can really replace on a rack and pinion. Okay. Anything further from that, now you're probably you know diagnosing there might be some play between the pinion and the gear itself, which is not serviceable at that point. And that can also be found. Pinion and gear. Can you explain that pinion and gear a little bit more in depth? Again, you have two gears. You have your pinion gear, and that's your input, and then you have your rack. It's a thr it's a rod that has teeth on it. Okay, it's that simple. It's just a rod that has teeth on it that meshes with the pinion. Now, there's bushings that keep the rod or the rack in place. Internally, those bushings can wear, and then you can have some movement of the of the rack assembly. Okay, and that's gonna allow for a little bit of chatter between the teeth. There's also a certain amount of backlash between the uh between the pinion and the rack. And that's as a drivetrain sky. I can see he's got a big smile on his face because I use the word he likes backlash. Backlash. So what's backlash again? Uh the space between a Dave Matthews song. Sorry. Um no, it's the space between uh the gear and the tooth before it starts to move. And we need that for a bit of expansion, a bit of lubrication, uh, and and just to have it so it won't bind, basically. All right, when we talk about just a traditional looking rack and pinion, we have that uh inner tie rod threaded into the end of the rack and then it comes out. What does it go into after that? Uh so the outer tie rod. Oh, let's start with the inner. Inner tie rod gets threaded right into the rack assembly itself. Okay. Uh, like Harnick mentioned, uh, the actual rack assembly, it gets threaded on from that end. And then we have to make sure that we have a jam nut that holds it in place, but we have to insert that first or thread it on first, then you have your outer tie rod thread into your uh uh inner tie rod, and then you end up getting, or then you end up putting the outer tie rod into the steering linkage or knuckle assembly, sorry. The knuckle, yeah. So we have a basically a threaded rod that's our adjustment for our our toe at that point, right? It's for adjusting specifically just toe for for our steering system. Yeah, and that that's different from the parallelogram because you had those adjuster sleeves, right? So this is kind of threaded internally. So these are threaded into one another while the other ones are threaded to the sleeve assembly itself. Yeah, and then we lock it with that jam nut. And then we lock with the jam nut, so we heat up all the time. You know what? I I think we've all done it at one point. Yes. No comment when you get those BMWs where um just like our our draggling systems, uh, you have this slit that's on the actual assembly itself that allows a lot of water to get in. Genius design. So BMWs kind of do that with their outer tie rods into the inner, and you know, you can you know try try your best. Try your best, as much penetrating fluid as possible, but uh it doesn't budge. Uh that's the end takeoff design. And and Harnack, I believe there's another uh style of rack and pinion. There is another uncommon design known as the center takeoff. In that design, the inner tie rods bolt to the center of the rack. It's a little bit of an oddball design and not too common today, but a lot of Hondas in the past used it. A lot of um sorry, certain Chrysler vehicles in the past used it as well. The main difference is rather than being threaded to the end of the rack piston, which with an end takeoff, you usually use like a crow's foot socket uh in order to thread it out. This is bolted to the center of the rack. It's also usually bolted up or mounted towards the firewall of the vehicle. A good indicator of a center takeoff type racking uh racking pinion is the outer tie rods are bolted towards the top of the knuckle. So if you step away for a second and look at it, you notice that's kind of odd. It's not what you're accustomed to seeing on most vehicles. Um and like I said, it's not as common as the end takeoff, the end takeoff by far more common. But you can still encounter those center takeoff plenty of 90s Honda still on the road. Yeah. I think Chrysler at some point on our LH vehicles and Shepids and Concords. And I found out the hard way because we're so used to doing end takeoffs where you know you're sitting on that little stool, you're underneath the vehicle, and you're like, Where's the jam nut? And then where's the tie rod? And then you happen to peek over and look up, and you're like, Oh my god, it's all all the way up there. And there's so little space. Yeah, so little space. And what I used to do is instead of you know being underneath the vehicle, I would take the whole cowl assembly off. That way I have full access to it, and I would lay on my stomach over the engine bay, and then just do my you know uh uh my toe adjustments from getting implemented with it. So that's for independent suspensions where we have to do uh uh do we have does it change at all when we have a solid axle? It does change because there is a different setup that's solid axle laterally across our vehicle takes a lot of space. So parallelogram type linkage isn't really gonna work. There isn't space for it. We use something referred to as a drag link type linkage, and the way I like to explain it is you still have your steering box, you still have your Pittman arm, but what you have instead now is a rod or a link that connects to your Pittman arm and then to the knuckle on the opposite side. There's nothing supporting it, so one end is dragging down. Okay, so that's why we call it a drag link type linkage. Now, if my Pittman arm is only connected to one knuckle and I turn my steering wheel, only one wheel is gonna turn, and that's bad. Well, yes. So how do I get two wheel steering? I needed an additional component. The toll bar. The toe bar? Is that what you call it? Uh we call it a toe bar. Just because, I mean, when you look at it, how many sides can you adjust on that? So this is uh the downside perhaps of this. You can only adjust total toe. And we usually call it a relay rod because it relays from one wheel to the other wheel, but your manufacturer's terms vary. Chrysler calls it a tie rod tube. Yes. Right? So it's a and that's what it looks like. It's a a long tube, and your tie rod threads into it, and you can only uh you only have one tie rod, so you're only adjusting total toe. And that's sort of a disadvantage of this design. Um, you can't compensate for small like just slightly being out of specification on one wheel. You're gonna have to find what's actually throwing you out of spec and replace components. Yeah. You also do have another adjustment available with a drag link type linkage, other than total toe. And that is steering wheel position. Yeah. So on the drag link itself, you can actually change the length of the drag link, uh, drag link. Sorry, there's a uh sleeve clamp as well, and you can change the position of the steering wheel. I do find Usually mid-road test. Or honestly, like after honestly, like after road test. Yeah, I ensure that the tow is good. Oh, absolutely. And then if the steering wheel is off-center, drive it down the middle of your shop. That's generally where your steering wheel or your road wheels can be straight ahead and the vehicle's level. And if your steering wheel's off-center, you have someone, you you find the level one apprentice, and you go, sit here, look at the steering wheel, and tell me when it's straight. Maybe level three apprentice. Yeah, it's pretty advanced. Level one's like it's straight, and you get no, it's not what are you looking at? So then you adjust your drag link and you get it straight. It's it's nice because it's actually relatively easy to do alignments on these types of vehicles. Even though I find it to be just an added, you know, when you do an alignment on a your traditional rack and pinion, you know, we hold down the steering wheel, we'll do our toe set, and whatever other adjustments are required. And generally the steering will be straight with the with the total toe. But you're right, when it comes to the drag link system itself, it um once you do your total tow, your steering wheel goes out the window. And like Ian said, that's when you go on a road test and you take the tools with you because the alignment machine will adjust for it if you know how to use it properly. But I've seen multiple techs just do the tow and then you know, I'm not gonna bother with the machine anymore. I'm just gonna drive it down the road. They take their 50 mil, their, you know, their pliers with them and adjust it on the go. Yeah. And I myself, I I do something similar. I get it close on the machine, and then I like to drive it and see where it actually is. Yeah. And the, you know, alignments, alignments become a huge issue because you always have a customer that will say, Oh, you know, when I drive home down this road, my car pulls this way and that way. And then you gotta take in account one road crown, two, all roads are built differently over years. My favorite is my car only pulls when I drive on this road. Only like I had a customer and it was on Kipling. So they're like when I'm driving here, it pulls it right. How's it on every other road? Yeah, it's fine. Okay, so aside from me doing some road work, there's not much I'm gonna be able to do to fix that concern. So is that system also called cross-tier? Would that be another? Cross tier is another term for it as well. And a lot of jeeps use that. Yeah, anything with a solid axle. Well, a lot of older Jeeps. Well, that's where the Fords come in. Because the Ford's with your twin I-beam type of uh suspension. So hybrid style system, right? Yeah. So the the twin I-beam type suspension that Ian so desperately wants to talk about. Um that is not true. I'd skip this completely if it was me. We could skip it. The twin I-beam is a really oddball design. It first of all, it's only used if the vehicle has a twin I-beam suspension, and then you got a twin I-beam linkage as well. And it almost looks like you go Pittman arm, one drag link, just like we talked about with Crossteer or Drag Link. And then at the other wheel, rather than a relay rod connecting the two wheels together, another drag link that mounts to the first drag link. So it's a little bit of a strange, it's a little bit of a strange configuration. Uh but Ford is still using it today on some of their vehicles, primarily um their heavier trucks. But aside from that, you're not gonna find it on a on a GM. GM still uses, well, GM still uses yeah, parallelogram linkage uh quite a bit. Um we have the the GMC Sierra in SD lab. Independent. That's a little bit older. I think it's an O4. Actually, there's two VINs on it. On the door it says 04, and then on the windshield it says 06. Yeah. It's got a donor. Definitely donated. Yeah. So, but uh very common for GM to use that type of linkage. The benefit of using that parallelogram type linkage, the real benefit we didn't get into, and we won't go too deep into, is you have a steering box that's going to give you more mechanical advantage than a rack and pinion. That can give you that. Exactly. And the size of those vehicles can host a larger box, which hosts bigger gears and can give you more of that mechanical advantage. And the real advantage we have now, because you look at pickup trucks today, 1500, it's got a rack and pinion. But how do we get that assist? It's electric. Yeah. Right? So we increase the efficiency by using an electric system that gives us more assist. But that I think is for another podcast. Definitely for another podcast, yeah. I think that's been pretty good. Do we cover everything pretty much? I think we got them all. Yeah, we all 151. And we also have included the autobody class that just came out of the yeah, if you can hear that, that's the rambunctious, shall we say, auto body class that's letting out for the day. Yeah, shout out to the auto body class. All right, Arturo, to end every episode, we have to ask some questions. And because it's the first time on, we're gonna go back a little bit. Okay. So if you had any vehicle to drive for one day, now this vehicle could be absurd. There's no budget. You magically know how to operate it. You instantly know how to operate it. What would you choose? I'm just gonna keep it simple. And my choice would be a bicycle. Nissan GTR R35. I thought you were gonna say Versa. I have some level one students right now who would be very happy with Well, they know what's up, it's a good car. What year is that R35? I mean, you don't want to go too early. The 09s had their their biggest problems. You're only driving it for a day. 2010. And it's made. It's got a little bit better. Well, if I had to pick, it'd be newer body, maybe in the 2016, 2017 body. And if you had that vehicle, where would you want to drive it for the day? I would take it to Cayuga. If I'm not gonna own this car, I'm gonna give her all I could. Yeah. And just enjoy the car. If I die in it, I'm dying it. You'll magically be alive again, I guess, in this situation. I'll just reincarnate and come back again. Yeah. Hey, can I see that car first? It's not mine. All right, and last question. If you could have any meal anywhere in the world, what would you choose and where? I'm a huge fan of faux or pho. Okay. And I've heard of great experiences of it if you got it from Vietnam. Okay. Uh they say one of the best bowls comes straight from a vendor that's on the streets from their cart. I have heard them before, actually. And I've seen a documentary on it as well. So if I could, yeah, that would be that would be my meal. What so I believe you can choose the different uh ingredients in it sometimes. Yeah, you can Do you have a preference of what's in your bowl? Uh one of the I mean, aside from like the noodles being there, um the the onions as well. I'm one that every time I get it, I ask for no cilantro. Oh, really? And coming from a you know South American background, my mom will does it taste like soap to you? No, it does not taste like soap, but I do hear that a lot, which I find it weird. It just when when cilantro is put into any meal, it just overpowers it. I've heard that a lot. And it doesn't taste like soap to me. My wife hates it. I like it. It takes the f all the flavors out. My mind just goes straight to that stuff. So uh I always ask for no cilantro. Okay. Um so you have like your trip, you have um brisket, you have uh flank, so or e sometimes beef balls. Beef balls, eh? So different places will beef balls, eh? Yep. But my my go-to would be uh rare beef with brisket. Okay. So I get uh the two the two that I normally will go for. Awesome. Well uh that wraps it up. Arturo, thanks for joining us. Awesome. You'll have to jump on again when we talk about some more uh components or or topics and types of assist and transmissions and all that kind of good stuff. Absolutely. I'm gonna be around. So let me know. We'll hopefully be doing this more consistently in the in the near future, so that'd be fun. So this is season three now. That we're in season three, which is why they've there's only been ten episodes a season, but still it's it's been a while now. Oh, it's great. It's great what you guys are doing. You're getting um a little bit of everybody that's here. You get to know them a little bit as well. So, and on top of that, the students are benefiting from you know getting to know us as individuals aside from you know the college, but um it's great what you guys are doing, and I appreciate that you guys gave me the opportunity to be on this podcast. Don't you work with somebody that is an avid listener to the podcast? Yeah, Gerardo. Gerardo. Gerardo Patty. He will be coming back for level three. So watch out for him then. Did tell him about the podcast, and I'm sure he listened to it, all of them. And he did remember uh giving some shout outs, and he's like, Oh, I hope one day I get a shout out. But today's starting for these uh start charging for these shout-outs. Yeah, we definitely do. This cost me a fortune. But uh yeah, shout out to G, AK Francois, the guys that I work with. Nice, awesome. Well, that's it for today's episode. I hope you guys uh learned something about steering. And if you have any questions, thoughts, things you want to know. Just shout them out down the hall. No one's gonna email you email. Send me an email. It's in the description of this podcast. This is now also found on YouTube, not video yet, but maybe we'll see. Um, but yeah, check it out on YouTube if you want, talking with so t and if you have a cool name that you want to throw in. Let's see what you can find. The dragon. That was really good, man. You know what, though that's how it has to end.