What's going on in this photo

[Chris_Dresbach]

I have enjoyed looking at some of the other old Studebaker photos posted here. I found this one I had stashed away. I think it was taken at the Proving Ground but not really sure what the driver is doing with two steering wheels.

[Welcome]

Measuring the turning effort at the steering wheel. Appears from the close proximity of those other cars, he was doing a static test.

[studegary]

When engineers wore neckties. He was roughing it with his suit jacket off and sleeves rolled up.
I remember the days when I was required to wear a conservative business suit. A sport jacket was not allowed. I remember wearing dark Hush Puppy shoes one Summer day. My manager got on me about not having polished shoes.

[StudeRich]

The Car appears to be a'47 to '49 Convertible! A good test car, since they don't get any heavier than that.

[Jeff_H]

Holy huge transducers!

Yes, looks to be a torque/force gauge setup. Direct acting too. Looks like pistons are clamped onto the car's normal wheel spokes and tubes leading up to the gauge. As the upper wheel turns, the torque applied compresses whatever fluid is in those pistons trying to turn the lower wheel and the resultant pressure indicated on the gauge. Wonder if they had the guage dial marked out in torque units or it was simply pressure and the engineer had to calculate the torque from the pressure, piston dimensions, and the lever arm distance on the lower wheel spokes? Time to whip out that slide rule....

Nowadays, they would use something like this:

http://www.raetech.com/Instrumentation/Steering_Torque_Sensor.php

All electronic and probably wired into their data acquistion system.

[63t-cab]

Likely my eyes,but is the test wheel smaller than the steering wheel ?

[spokejr]

Take a look in the Dec. 2012 issue of "CAR AND DRIVER", there is an article about the difference in feel between hydraulic and electronic power steeering. There is a pic of a test BMW and the set-up doesn't look a whole lot different today than then.

[2R Truck Seeker]

Very cool pic!

Anyone notice that the "test instrument" is built around a Ford Model T steering-wheel ?

[raprice]

Frank is on to something. I don't think it's a Model T wheel, but probably is from a '20s auto, possibly a Studebaker. What the engineer is doing is over my head.
Rog

[2R Truck Seeker]

If not a T wheel, it is flipped upside down... I'm still betting on it being from a Model T, as they would have been plentiful and cheap back then...

[plwindish]

It looks to me like a device to measure the strength or force required to turn the wheel (the old "armstrong" powered steering) and steer the car. The wires were going to the late 40's version of the laptop of macbook??? (that "data acquisition machine" is probably taking up 3 floors of 4 story building!)

[Chris_Dresbach]

That can't be a T wheel. Look closely and you can see the grip groves are up side down.

[JeffDeWitt]

I don't think it's a "T" wheel either. Just did a Google search for images of "T" wheels and none of them seemed to have the finger grips.

[klifton1]

I think the guy has you all fooled. He's sleeping.
Klif