Having used my '47 to back up my dragster trailer up my very narrow driveway has proven to be a major PITA with the stock steering so... Here's what I did to add Power Steering. First was trying to find the optimum space - in my case there was a slight space claim issue due to the size of the Early Hemi motor in there. So After fiddling around for a day I thought I knew roughly where I wanted the box. To test it I made a plate (temporary) to mount the box in a couple of positions. After settling on a place I made an adapter plate with some bosses welded on to mount the Saginaw PS box. I then transferred the "test" hole from my temporary plate to my adapter. In the first picture of the adapter you can see REV 1 of my plate. I later optimized it for additional clearance for the spring clamp - you can see that if you look at the last pic where it's mounted to the truck frame. Somewhere in the middle of this firedrill I had to shorten the factory column. That was a straight forward deal where I turned the end down to .750 (originally it was .760" dia - just big enough to NOT fit into the GM double D piece of column I had laying around. After that I machined two flats. I debated whether or not to put a roller bearing in the end, but having seen factory setups with a bushing I figured I'd give it a try. I can always change it later if it turns out to be a bad idea. The double D piece of tubing will be welded to the intermediate flange - in the pic below it is shown separated, but that was just to facilitate the mocking up of parts. BTW please ignore the trans cooler lines - they are temporarily displaced due to my space claim issue. I will be redoing those as well. To Be Cont'd
Who hoo- - Got it all working tonight. Used an old pump I had marked "327". Used some Parker 2 wire hydraulic hose - good for 3,000 psi or so. The hydraulic lines are nice - I can preassemble them for a perfect fit and then get them crimped after I know they're right. I made the brush holder out of some delrin and an old motor brush I had laying around- I had previously welded a 1/2-13 nut to the column - easy to replace the whole assy need be.
UPDATE: After driving this for a bit I decided that the conversion works a bit TOO GOOD. It's so easy to steer now that you loose the feel of the road. I think one of the reasons for this is the huge diameter factory steering wheel - which I took great pains to keep so... after reading up a little - I decided to shim the PS pump to reduce the pressure a tad. No spare pumps around to scavenge a washer from so I dug up some tubing the right size and parted off a shim. I opted to make it .031" thick - a lot of guys were using more, but being a first timer at this - small steps seem to make the most sense. After going around the block I would say it's 100% better and I am quite happy with it thus far - has a much better road feel now. Super easy to do - made it a huge bonus!!!!!
Cool, somehow I missed this the first time you posted it and as I have been contemplating something similar for Chevy AD trucks it is pretty timely. My buddy had a rolling chassis for a late 40's early 50's Studebaker pickup at his house for a while and it came with cross steering on it from the factory. I was looking at it as a chassis for a project that didn't materialize.
I forgot about this thread, but to add one final update (I hope it's the last one). Anyways early on I had debated whether or not to use the factory mtg locations/methods as I didn't really like it much. The stock box is mounted thru ONE wall of the chassis and with 3 3/8" bolts. After noticing that it had a fair amount of movement I decided that I should have gone with my gut instinct and thru bolted and upped the bolt size to 7/16" - which I have now done. I also added a 4th location so I now have 3 or the 4 mtg bolts bolted thru the frame. While this was a very easy upgrade - I should have just done it from the beginning. No harm no foul, but I would recommend this approach instead of learning the hard way like I did. ;-)
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