When hunting a steering box for traditional side steer which way should the pitman arm move when turning left ? Thanks
I would assume as usual...towards the front..to push the steering arm forwards on your spindle,there fore making a LEFT turn
Land Rover box works well. Looks nice too - it's aluminium and some of them are finned. You'll need a RHD one to get LHD using it in side steer but you can reverse it when you rebuild it. Here's mine after a rebuild;
Any Series 2 or 3. A rebuild kit costs less than £12 ($20) in the UK. Can be made to look even nicer;
A few notes that may help. All for left turn with steering rod on left of car]; Arm moving foreword,can be from box going up or from box going down.{ box is above or below{B}. If box mounting clears better with box low=bottom or under frame=better if arm goes up from box an moves foreword . If box you pick has arm that moves foreword below the box,mount so box is in or just above frame. Basicly the closer your rear steering rod end is to rear bone end the better your steering design is for lest bump steer. Avoid thinking about cowel steering ,mounting a box high,that more often then not ends up with very high amounts of bumpsteer=bad. Drawing shows a few places that steering rod moves close an not so close to how front axle moves/spindel arm moves=if both are not very close together like {A} or {B} ,it will made car if like {C} dart around when hitting bumps even though you hold the steeringwheel straight a head.
I've used a '60's VW bus steering box on my '26 T modified. The steering box mounts on top of the frame and the pitman arm is sticking up. The drag link is parallel with the wishbone and with in a few inches of the same length . Looks like it will work out to be a winner to me. ........................... Jack
MOPAR was using this box during the muscle car era. They are easy to come by and relatively inexpensive. They very closely resemble a Moon box. Maybe someone has a pic of the moon Box I can' seem to find one now.
"Parallel" to ground or wishbone is a old wife's tail an BS,look at drawing again and reread my note. Having both rear povit points of steering rod an bone as close as possible to each other is the trick to low bump steer. Some times it dose work out to looking parallel,but just the look is not the goul.
You have to get everything pivoting together, either as dana says or by dissecting the radius rod pivot points with an imaginary line running from the center of the top king pin boss through the rear radius rod mount. The end of the pitman arm always ends up below the rear radius rod mounting point. I can never remember where you grab your front indicator point from exactly and have to look for a diagram every time. maybe @dana barlow remembers and can clear it up for me.
You have to hit the yards for these, most often. I have yet to find a reman that is not Iron (unless Iron works for you).
I got mine off of E*ay, several years ago. You have to trust the sellers description of condition, though.
LOL I see them all the time here and 50 dollar boxes are common. I have been told that rebuild parts are not easy to come by but I can get them if I need them here. I think that in some parts of the country liability is more of an issue than here in the mid west. Damned shame that we as rodders/mechanics are not immune to *ambulance chasers. *I was going to say attorneys but not all attorneys are as bad as some in that regard.
Points to use are spindel arm were side steering rod mounts{A},going back to rear of were axle bone mounts to frame bracket{A}=bottom line for the ark. For steering rod ark,use same{A}front to rear of steering rod mount to end of arm off steering box making your ark from that point to see how close they match=closer the better. If your not good at drawings,This can be done when your doing a mock up of were to put box/arm,with 2 strings tied,one at rear of bone an marked for were it meets end of spindel arm,the other string tied to out end of box arm.=you can then move both together at there front ends,one in each hand a see if one gets off match with the other as you move up with both. ****OR {Checking for bump steer} if car is kind of together so you can do this,have some one hold the steering wheel dead stright with out moving it,as you bounce up and down on front of car as your looking at the spindel arm,to see if it is wiggling as you bounce on frame. If its wiggling much,you have bump steer,a little wiggling,like about 1/8in. is fairly OK an low efect,but as it gets bigger you got some redesign to do. There are more then a few guys driving around with bad bump steer,that think all old cars drive poorly,so there is nothing wrong with there car,try not to be in that bubble of deniel. Set up right,old cars an hotrods can drive very well when the engineering is done. Insted of copying something seen in a old photo that you think was cool an must be right just becuz its a old photo{ hotrodding is not copying old misstakes,its making things better an sometimes you get to kind of copy good engineering others did,but know witch is witch
Dana, Thanks man. For some reason which is beyond me that is info that just does not stick in my head. You would think that it would but it just doesn't. I am going to have to create a diagram and laminate it for future reference. Anyway thanks
ABSOLUTELY, I second what Dana Barlow and Pork and Beaner are saying! Steering box selection on an early Ford has soooooo much more to do than just the direction the pitman arm travels when turned what direction. This is one of the things that has been "lost" in the rat rod thing, good, basic, correct geometry! Dana's diagram tells you all that you really need to know.... Please don't fall for the old "wishbones and drag link parallel to the ground" crap. I am diggin' the Land Rover box, big time! looks like it might be a fitting replacement for the old F-1 boxes that are getting tough to find.
Same exact set up as Spooler41. 1969 VW bus box from swap meet. Cost me $16.00 for a new bushing and seals. Cleaned it. Took it all apart. Installed the new bushing and seals. And filled it with GREASE. Not gear oil. Works like a masterpiece .
I wonder if the guts on an Iron case reman are the same as the aluminum case original. If that is the case, and enterprising rodder could merge the good of all.
"Old cars are supposed to handle poorly" is something that is often said by folks who have no idea how to set up a chassis, suspension, or steering.
That looks great. You can't get much closer to having the pivot points match than this. Shouldn't be any bump steer with this one.
Which is odd because the VW bus boxes I'm used to all have the pitman arm pointing up instead of down! The arm down version will work perfectly...but the arm up version will, with a decent amount of suspension movement, likely have some bump steer. I wonder what year did the boxes change from arm up to arm down? Seems like they also changed out the clamp style mount they were famous for as well.
I am not sure, we used to look for the steel case boxes for our big block cars because they are "stronger". They are or where virtually non existent here.
Or, is interchanged with "it works perfectly".... Then 15 minutes later the questions start. "Ya know how ALL vintage cars kinda wander a bit when you go down the road?"...
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