Guys and gals: Can you please help me one more time on my epic saga of improving the power steering on my 1970 Mach 1 ?
Here is the background ( very long story made somewhat shorter ): Back in 1988, two mechanic friends helped me to install a PS parts kit on my car. Roger Rode in Ohio sold me the kit and said that I should also change the manual gearbox to a power gearbox, but that it was not mandatory. I did not change the gearbox because it seemed like we would almost have to remove the 351C engine to get it out.
The rest of the install went A-OK, except that we had to fabricate a large bracket to hold the threaded end of the power piston in place. The smaller Ford bracket had torn loose from the left front chassis member on our first test run. The PS system worked very nicely, did not leak, but the turning circle radius of the car went up noticeably. I just chalked this up to the fact that I did not switch out the gearbox. ( Wrong )
Fast forward to 2003, the Summer which I had planned to do many, many resto projects on my beloved Mustang. Amazingly, I noticed for the first time that the Pitman arm was contacting the big bracket that we made, and I thought that this was the culprit in keeping ther car from turning fully. So I took the bracket off ( giant headache by itself ) and took it down to Georgia to my brother who ground it down.
But upon re-assembly, imagine my surprise when the Pitman arm now does NOT contact the bracket at all, but the steering still does not turn any further whatsoever !! Hhmmm ! Now I am thinking that the steering gearbox was not properly centered when we did the original install.
So last night I pulled off the Pitman arm, dropped the center link, and centered the steering gearbox. The manual gearbox will turn five complete turns from lock to lock. When I took it off, it had three turns to the left and two turns to the right, which seemed to corroborate my thinking, especially since the car can turn left much sharper than it can turn right.
Now, here is the final surprise ! After I centered the gearbox last night and tried to re-install the Pitman arm, I had to turn the wheel darn near one complete turn before the splines on the Pitman arm could be aligned with the splines on the gearbox shaft !!! In other words, the gearbox shaft does not seem to turn very much at all in relation to the steering wheel ! From other posts, I believe that the gearbox has a 16:1 ratio ( sixteen turns of the steering wheel would turn the Pitman arm shaft one turn ). Therefore, since the steering wheel can turn five turns, the Pitman arm shaft should be able to turn 5/16 of a turn ( about 1/3 of a complete turn ).
I am using up a huge amount of the 1/3 of a turn just to get the darm Pitman arm to re-align back on the splines !!!!
Am I reading this situation right ?? Who can give me some helpful hints and advice ??
Could the gearbox be so old and shot that there is tremendous play between the steering wheel going around and the Pitman arm shaft not going around as much as it should ??
Any help is MUCH appreciated ? ( Pray for me, too ! )
-Jeff
Here is the background ( very long story made somewhat shorter ): Back in 1988, two mechanic friends helped me to install a PS parts kit on my car. Roger Rode in Ohio sold me the kit and said that I should also change the manual gearbox to a power gearbox, but that it was not mandatory. I did not change the gearbox because it seemed like we would almost have to remove the 351C engine to get it out.
The rest of the install went A-OK, except that we had to fabricate a large bracket to hold the threaded end of the power piston in place. The smaller Ford bracket had torn loose from the left front chassis member on our first test run. The PS system worked very nicely, did not leak, but the turning circle radius of the car went up noticeably. I just chalked this up to the fact that I did not switch out the gearbox. ( Wrong )
Fast forward to 2003, the Summer which I had planned to do many, many resto projects on my beloved Mustang. Amazingly, I noticed for the first time that the Pitman arm was contacting the big bracket that we made, and I thought that this was the culprit in keeping ther car from turning fully. So I took the bracket off ( giant headache by itself ) and took it down to Georgia to my brother who ground it down.
But upon re-assembly, imagine my surprise when the Pitman arm now does NOT contact the bracket at all, but the steering still does not turn any further whatsoever !! Hhmmm ! Now I am thinking that the steering gearbox was not properly centered when we did the original install.
So last night I pulled off the Pitman arm, dropped the center link, and centered the steering gearbox. The manual gearbox will turn five complete turns from lock to lock. When I took it off, it had three turns to the left and two turns to the right, which seemed to corroborate my thinking, especially since the car can turn left much sharper than it can turn right.
Now, here is the final surprise ! After I centered the gearbox last night and tried to re-install the Pitman arm, I had to turn the wheel darn near one complete turn before the splines on the Pitman arm could be aligned with the splines on the gearbox shaft !!! In other words, the gearbox shaft does not seem to turn very much at all in relation to the steering wheel ! From other posts, I believe that the gearbox has a 16:1 ratio ( sixteen turns of the steering wheel would turn the Pitman arm shaft one turn ). Therefore, since the steering wheel can turn five turns, the Pitman arm shaft should be able to turn 5/16 of a turn ( about 1/3 of a complete turn ).
I am using up a huge amount of the 1/3 of a turn just to get the darm Pitman arm to re-align back on the splines !!!!
Am I reading this situation right ?? Who can give me some helpful hints and advice ??
Could the gearbox be so old and shot that there is tremendous play between the steering wheel going around and the Pitman arm shaft not going around as much as it should ??
Any help is MUCH appreciated ? ( Pray for me, too ! )
-Jeff
