Way back when we discussed this and there was a good article from a Ford Falcon blog which is no longer on the web so I thought I would hunt down another. Like our 50's Fords Mustangs prior to 1967 they also had the "Spear of Death" steering box so this for the most part would apply to our Fords also. https://www.vintage-mustang.com/threads/tilt-steering-wheel-options-for-my-65.1072250/ This might also be a good time to incorporate the "Junkyard electric power steering" referenced here in Post # 97 https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/faq-sticky.897329/page-4, I have run across a fair amount of guys that done the electric power steering on several of the Facebook 50's Fords forums I contribute to.
Funny you posted this today. Went to my local Pick-N-Pull this morning and grabbed an EPS to be grafted to my '54 steering shaft. $66 out the door. Came out of an '07 Chevy Equinox. Just did a rebuild on my '54 box. I've got all my EPS research nailed. Should be a pretty easy conversion. I have to wait a few weeks for the 'Bruno' controller to show up in the mail but I promise a full write up when it's all said and done.
Now you need to camouflage that bowtie with something like this. LOL! https://www.ebay.com/itm/Grant-5665...=16394601928231f23b45e3524f8dbb64a934562b4496
Haha! Now I need to camouflage the Saturn emblem. I emailed Bruno last night and was told I got the wrong EPS! Apparently, his controller won't work with the later mid year and up '07 Equinox, only the earlier mid year and down car. So.....after church today it was back up to Pick-N-Pull and I pulled an '05 Saturn Vue unit. They swapped it straight across for me. It's amazing how easy it is to pull these EPS's. Took me about 1/2 hour. And, Bruno verified his controller will work with this Saturn unit!
Gonz who I helped through a 302 swap in Canadian '54 Ford also used the Saturn Vue unit and is very happy with it.
It looks to be a very compact unit compared to even the aftermarket units costing over $1K. Since Saturn was s****ped by GM these may be getting harder to come by,do you remember how much of the original shaft you had to had to cut ? I see the Saturn units on ebay bringing up to $200 here is an interesting article: https://gr***rootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/electric-steering-conversion/131389/page1/
nascardave, Do you have any problems with the Saturn unit re-centering itself after a turn? I have one of these units I would like to use, but I have heard that there are centering issues.
Unfortunately my car is not on the road as yet. It is still in the rebuilding process. I know with power to it the steering goes right to left. My understanding with lack of return is an alignment issue. Mainly Caster settings. The electric steering we are using came out of late model cars and have a lot of built in caster in the suspention. Upward of 5 to 7 degree positive caster. Unfortunately our cars are hard press to get more than 1 or 2 degree caster. I think playing with the alignment would make it liveable. Don't know for sure. I work with the people at E Power steering in Ramona,Calif. Ph. 858 774 4610 They helped me with the controlled, cuplings and checked my unit,and made the computer remote. They were very useful, you may give them a call with your concerns. Dave
Hi Tom, Doing well, thank you. Hope you are also. I know you have electric power steering. Are you having any issues with return to center with your electric power steering?
If you Google for "$35 electric power steering" there is a guy that put Toyota Prius electric power steering in a 1964 Falcon (solid shaft box) but he goes into great detail. He is some sort of retired engineer that tests several steering systems and they don't need a separate control box like the Saturn system does, just the controller that came on the car. A bunch of the Japanese and Korean cars use a system that gets its information from the "bus" which is a link to all the other computers in the car. If this signal is missing (which would be the case in our 50's Fords) than after 10 seconds it goes into a default mode and works fine without a separate control box. https://ls1tech.com/forums/suspensi...ail-safe-no-ebay-module-no-caster-issues.html