Thread: Steering column drop question

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A lot depends on whether your dash's lower rail is reinforced or not.
If I remember right you have a Brookville 32 dash as do I.

The Brookville 32 dash has another layer of sheet metal - same gage as the dash metal far as I can tell - on the bottom rail.
To my way of thinking that's not enough reinforcement to keep the bottom rail of the dash from flexing during steering inputs at low speed.
Enough flexing and the dash rail will break.

I don't know if you've owned a roadster before, but all of them, the ones with doors anyway, have 'cowl shake.'

Cowl shake is the bit where the cowl goes from side to side when you hit the right bump or series of bumps.
It happens cuz the roadster cowls are supported only at the bottom.
Glass or steel makes no difference and the amount of shake is about the same.

A lot of rod builders run a mini roll bar up under the dash.
It follows along the inside edge of the cowls vertical legs and sweeps up and over duplicatiing - most times - the underside curve of the cowl.
This mini roll bar is right up next to the firewall as well and usually has tabs welded on so you can bolt it to the firewall.
Hanging the steering column on this or triangulating a piece that runs the column support back under the dash rail works well.

As does the - usually - 1" square tube that spans the cockpit right behind the dash. Especially when you tie the 1" square tube cross-bar to the mini roll bar.

The mini roll bar makes for a very solid car, one with no shake, rattle and roll....