Technical F1 Scary touchy steering. Opinions welcome.

A friend acquired this 51 f1. At some time in the past, someone tried to give it power steering. From what I can see, they left the og f1 box and linkage etc… then hacked in the ram and weird drag link/hydraulic block thingie (hydraulic block is at the end of the drag link)from a 58-60 tbird. Then put some kind of steering pump on it. The rest of the suspension is stock. It has wider radials on some sort of torque thrusts.

It does work. But the behavior is sketchy. When driving, the slightest input is amplified x100. Over 60 is scary as it feels like a little too much input will spin the truck out. Plus I did get it to lock up (wheel locked at full left) when I did a u turn and gave a little gas. It freed up when I let it sit for two seconds.
My thoughts are the t bird power steering stuff is way too much for this stock setup and is reducing feedback and amplifying the input. My hunch is to unhook it all and stock stuff will be fine. The new owner doesnt mind manual steering. Any thoughts?

 

Yep, throw out that junk. A properly rebuilt F-1 box, filled with John Deere corn head grease, will be fine. Make sure all the rest of the rod ends are good shape too.

 

No help ,
Curious to hear some answers,
I'm thinking that the pressure needs to be lowered in assistance?
Modern vehicles I believe around 95 Ish does less pressure needed the higher the speed.

 

Looking at that blue hose it looks like it mightn't be too long before it repairs itself!

I reckon your prognosis is correct. A serious mismatch of parts. More caster might help improve it some but probably better to just remove it all.

Chris

 

Sounds like a few issues...Pressure as Eddy mentioned plus the ratio of the OEM steering box is not correct for a PS application.

 

There’s no question, take all that stuff off. It’s difficult enough to set up a proper manual steering system from random components but to attempt to engineer your own PS system is lunacy.

Just seeing the scuff mark made on that high pressure hose turning to left lock would have been enough for me to decide.

 

And go back to skinny front tires! Less drag.

Dave

 

I’ve seen adjustable flow valves used in PS set ups. Flaming River makes one.

I’d probably scrap the set up if it were mine.

 

Agree with above, scrap it all.

Anthony I've actually had 2 different customers try the adjustable valve crap and it was just that, crap.

Never could get the adjustable valve set to a point were it seemed or felt stable. Ended u0 sending both vehicles power steering pumps and one had a rack, one was a steering gear, but anyway sent the rack and pump and just the pump out to a company out west that rebuilt them and lowered the pressure in them.

It helped and made them drivable but I never cared for the "feel".

...

 

Another vote for removing previous mods in the interest of safety and driver control.
There was another recent thread on those power ram systems started by @Eth727 I think on his 63 Impala. Not a lot of fans of those in stock applications, although there were a couple diehards.

 

I just scrapped the entire original power steering stuff in my ‘59 T’bird. That ram system was a marginal step towards good steering at best. The advice to chuck all of it is spot on. Mine had a "dead" spot in the center where the car felt like it was wandering, even with a new valve, rebuilt ram, new ball joints and tie rod ends. It was scary. Maybe had been OK back when we had nothing to compare how they steered too, but in todays world of tight, great road feel rack and pinion steering in our daily drivers, it felt awful.

 

My brother put a contraption like that together once. You absolutely couldn't drive it over 45 MPH. Instead of being the best of two worlds it became the worst of both. Scrap it all and start over would be my advice.

 

Thank y’all for confirming my gut desire to advise him to trash all the bolt on stuff and go back to stock.

I love y’all in a super creepy, probably shouldn’t invite me to cocktail parties sorta way <3

 

I went into the power steering amount of assistance provided with a Vette and the ram type power steering. Speaking to some of the experts they told me that it's not pressure but flow that affects the amount of assistance and a reduced size orifice in the power hose will reduce the amount of assistance. You can get the adapters from some of the suppliers for race power steering systems.

 

Actually the volume (flow) versus pressure argument is correct Tim. But applying power steering to a box with a ratio like these old trucks have is crazy. They have several turns lock to lock as opposed to a purpose designed PS box. The intent was to make them easier to turn without having power steering.

 

Effective caster and wheel offset will affect steering return. Manual boxes are 20:1 power boxes are 16:1. A boosted manual system will be very light at the steering wheel especially if the original large steering wheel is used.

If effective caster is correct and tire offset/scrub is acceptable then it could be that slight input from the manual box is keeping enough pressure on the control valve to keep it activated.

Verify the king pins are not worn/sloppy, wheel bearings are not sloppy, and the steering linkage bjs. Binding or slop in these components will also cause steering weirdness.

Might want to verify what the steering box actually is.
Remove the front wheels and see how many rotations of the steering wheel it is lock to lock.
~4 turns would most likely be manual
~3 turns would most likely be power.

 

If the wheels have a lot of offset, that would cause twitchyness too. Henry designed the system to have the kingpin point to the ground at the same spot as the center of the tire. So, even if you remove all the power assist crap, it still might drive poorly with lotsa offset wheels.

 

I did a linkage assist power steering conversion on a '58 GMC pickup ages ago using parts scavenged from a '71 or thereabouts Torino. Can't remember much but there were similar setups on fully loaded '71 and earlier Dodge pickups with a beam axle.

 

There is an OT power steering gear that works as if it was designed for the F1s . Toyota 4x4 pre 86 . Goggle it . It’s way to late model to discuss here

 

A properly built f1 box, new seals etc, run 90w gear oil it steers easier than filling one up with grease, just fyi.

I agree with going to a narrower front tire. It seems someone put a stabilizer on the tie rod cross link. That will have to go as well. Check the caster of the front axle at the kingpins. Anything over 7 it will have too much effort to steer but will track down the road straight as an arrow.

Side note, if your buddy wants easier steering, I have a F6 box here, they almost directly swap in but have another turn to lock. Drove a model A with a f6 box and it was two finger steering. I have a f6 box in stock I can trade him the f1 for.

 

The only one that I know to work is the aforementioned Toyota 4x4 pickup box swap.

 

Thank y'all.

Box is stock F1. No steering stabilizer, that's the ram that boosts the steering. Good point on the offset!

I'll check for play but I think we are all on the right track. It needs to go.

 

The ford factory power steering control valve on the end of the drag link [by the steering box arm], is adjustable to adjust the sensitivity of the hydraulic cylinder. The b all socket is also adjustable and it's setting is critical. Find a early 60'S ford shop manual to learn how to do it

 

Just one more vote for dump all that crap and go back to manual steering.

 

The Toyota stuff and it will steer and drive as well as a newer truck . I put 150K on one not one complain

 

I might play with it before I scrapped it. Sounds like the power steering pump pressure might be too high. Can you cut it back like a Chevy by changing shims?

 

I put one on a customer truck 20+ years ago. As far as I know he is still driving it. Did have to put kingpins in it because they were shot and it was a handfull to drive at first.

 

Late to the party here, but my thoughts.
The pressure being high makes it twitchy. Being a manual box makes it more input required for a given turn amount. Any loose steering components or kingpins will make it hard to keep a constant straight line. Wheel offset and wide tires will make it more twitchy as well. The adapted P/S parts may not have correct geometry and causing too much leverage. The control valve could be faulty?

Bottom line is probably best to just go back to original non-P/S. Or do the Toyota box conversion discussed in previous replies.

I am not sure if any of those old ram assist type P/S designs ever had good feel or function, beyond making turning the steering wheel easier.

 

what did you do for a column

 

Yep, multiple issues. I understand why it was done because I'm sure this steered miserably at slow speed and/or while parking without it. Problem one, installing power on a manual steering box. Power boxes have 'faster' ratios which increases steering effort which the power assist mitigates. Power assist on a manual box generally results in hypersensitive steering. Whether there's enough adjustment in the system to decrease sensitivity is hard to say. But the deal-breaker IMO is the lack of the 'normal' Ford idler arm. Ford used a 'torsion' bushing on the chassis side of the idler arm on the cars with the linkage assist power. The purpose of this was as you turned, the bushing was twisted one way or the other but always trying to return to center. This bushing is what returns the steering to center. This being missing is why the steering is 'locking' at full lock and also contributes to the 'twitchiness'. No place to install one either as there's no idler arm. The wide tires/wheels only aggravate the problem even more. My '60 Ford Sunliner 'vert has manual steering and is a real handful in a parking lot. Drives fine when moving at any speed over 20 mph, but get into a parking lot and it takes both arms to manhandle it. I thought about installing a 'necker knob' on the steering wheel, but one arm isn't enough.

Best bet is an integrated power steering box like the aforementioned Toyota 4x4, but that opens another can of worms what with the required steering column mods.