guys has anyone put r&p sterring on a 49'-51' ford? how about a power box? i realize jamco has conversion for volvo box but try finding one, hell i can't even find a picture of one! have my ECI disc kit but the power steering conversion would be great. thanks
I've got rack and pinion on my 49. I used fatman dropped uprights, steering arms and his R&P install kit. I used a Pontiac Sunbird manual rack instead of the Cavalier Power rack that Fatman reccomends because i didnt feel like hanging anything else off the front of the engine. I also used the stock steering column. I had clearance problems with the oil pan, but I think that was probably due to lowereing the engine in the car to make the hump smaller. I'll post pic's tonight, I'm off to Whorlando right now.
is that Volvo box that hard to find? a couple years ago i went to Wavecrest to learn about shoebox woodies and discovered that many were using the Volvo box with the stock IFS. Rick Mack (the woodie wood guy) showed me his setup in his shoe box and said it worked real nice. he drove it there (San Diego) from i believe Idaho? i'm not an expert on shoeboxes , just saying what i learned. i have never driven a car with that setup. i ended up with a Fatman IFS on the `49 i did
90% of the volvo's 68'-74' had manual steering. the 140 &160 had same box. in 75' they went to r&p steering. the gm "center steer" racks are easy to find and work great. they are easy to id as they were firewall mounted.
I dont recall a whole lot of grinding on the brackets for the discs. The only grinding done was in the area where the calipers fit into the brackets, and then only because i had the brackets powder coated and the extra material in that area was causing the calipers to bind. I had some issues with bolt clearances especially where the bracket bolts interfered with the uprights. Some guys have problems with it, some dont. My biggest problem is I bought the car as a project and the guy who had it before me was a real putz. He had a ford bolt pattern on the rear and chevy on the front. I tried adapters but finally gave up and replaced the rotors with ford rotors which meant changing spacers on the bracket and spindle and putting a spacer on the inboard pad on each side to make everything fit. Once I made those changes everything worked perfectly. I'll put up some pic's later, I'm doing some rewiring before the rain hits.
I looked into the Volvo box too but i'm convinced it was as much work as the R&P was, plus getting the Volvo box is very problematic. Also, I wasn't thrilled putting in something invented by people whose greatest mechanical achievement to date is the cuckoo clock.
My 2 cents, after a lot of reasearch and doing the volvo conversion on my shoe-I'm not sold on the R&P swap. I've heard a lot of stories of poor turning radius and difficult installs and little tech help. The volvo 160 power box install-I've only heard rumors of it ever being done successfully, and never seen a pic of that. It's too big and I don't know of any engine that works without a lot of exhaust trouble. The volvo 140 box was a hassle but compared to my lousy stock steering, it was totally worth doing. Supposedly if you adjust your stock box correctly you can get the play out and it's easier to steer. I wish I'd fooled with it more before I threw it out but I didn't. I didn't have a problem finding a volvo box, I paid around $100 shipped for mine and so far so good. I used this junkyard search engine here shoebox ford building info volvo steering box swap tech If I had it all to do over again, I'd very seriously consider doing an S10 subframe rather than throwing time and money at the stock front end. Good luck whatever you decide.
As far as the turning circle goes, I think my 49's is a little bit tighter than the Titanic's. Maybe.
Actually, come think of it, I never crank the wheel all the way because I haven't fixed my tierod/flywheel interference problem and it grinds if I go full lock left. So my turning radius ain't so great, *and* I don't have power steering! LOL maybe I shoulda gone R&P
I dont think the problem with the turning circle has anything to do with the box or R&P. I think its just the front end geometry. Unless you subframe it you're stuck with it.
i have to think the r&p is the way to go for me. along with ECI disc upgrade should be fine. if i wasn't 1250 mile from home this truck would be running already.
I seen that the r&p was a manual one there is a power steering thats looks exakly like this and it is from following cars Opel Astra, Calibra , Vectra and Saab 900 from 1994 and Saab 9 3 . the maunal one like this is on older Opels like Kadett and Ascona with FWD. Some of the last Kadett's have power steering and some of all Ascona's have it too
The fatman set up is designed for a cavalier rack, which were all power. Some Sunbirds came with manuals, and its a direct swap.
i put the cavalier rack under my 53 ,i hate it .lost some radius..my 3/4 ton chevy 4x4 turns tighter...im going to put a 99-04 jeep grand steering box under it.
Isn't that just a regular Chevy car style steering box? Better know what your doing to set up the center link and idler arm if you want to avoid bumpsteer! The center link will have to be custom made to put the inner tierods where they need to be...as in close together like the above pictures. I'd just shorten your steering arms at the spindles to maximize the steering angle capability of what you have now!
I have used the manual Volvo box with good success in my 50 Ford. It requires the Fatman mounting bracket and the lowered steering arms to install correctly. This will eliminate bumpsteer problems and places the cross link parallel with the ground. The box also reduces turns lock to lock from the standard stock box which is nice on the highway. I am in the process of switching to the power Volvo box and it appears there will be some problems with exhaust manifold clearance. Has anyone done this and what did you use for exhaust other than building a tube header from scratch?
init1-More power to you if you can get that power box to work. FWIW I've never seen a successful install, although one guy claimed to have done it on shoeboxford.com , but never had pics. My guess is that yes, you'll have to modify or make your own exhaust to fit it, whatever engine you're using.
I have worked on a '51 with the volvo power box installed, and it was a tight fit. this car has a small block ford, and manifold clearance was tight to say the least. I would probably do the volvo manual box long before the rack and pinion though.
chevy power steering box easy little fab and you use all the same linkage idler arms ... ive done 10 or so of them and they work great !You will need to cut and box part of the frame... that rack at the begining looks scary as all hell "3u-joints?"
I,ve read all posts on this and all I can say is this. I have a 50 ford that steered like a p.o.s. with the stock box, all over the road above 60 , I tried adjusting the box according to the w/shop manual no joy, so I installed a volvo 140 box on a bracket I made.To say volvo boxes are built by a country that makes clocks is b.s. volvo boxes are made by ZF who are one of the largest suppliers of reduction drives in the world.Dont use a ford arm they may have the same number of splines but are tapered, use the volvo arm , remachined to take ford tie-rod end.My car sits low and steers great with basicly stock suspension parts.
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