I am working on a 56 Mercury Montclair for an older fella. He has owned it since the early 60s but hasn't driven it in 40 years. It has a power steering horn button, but no signs of any other power steering components on it. We put a 302 in it and I asked him if he wanted power steering and he said it steered fine back in the day. I told him he was also in his 20s and had skinny bias ply tires on it. But, we never put ps on it. We don't have it done yet and just have scab tires on it and it has not been aligned yet. It does seem to steer hard just driving around the yard. I know new tires (radial) and alignment should help. My question. If this was an original ps car, would the steering box be a different ration than a non ps car? And if so, would that make it harder to steer. Thanks in advance for the awesome advice I always get here.
The power steering was not in the box but in the linkage like a 60s Mustang and most likely leaked and has been eliminated years ago,I think the boxes for p/s did have a different ratio then non p/s.
Yes, I understand that. But, I was wondering if they had the power assist on the steering components, they maybe used a different ratio box. So, that is what you think too? It seemed odd to me that a Montclair did not have power steering and it had the PS horn button. But no signs of brackets on the engine or anything underneath. I know they had a different idler arm bracket with the cylinder mount on it. The original engine is gone now, and I don't remember if it had a double crank pulley or not. Thanks for the response.
AFAIK the '55-56 Fords and Mercurys used the same ratio steering box for both power and non-power applications. I can't speak directly to the Mercs, but I do know that the Fords used the same box for either application as I've disassembled both. If you do a search for steering box rebuild kits for the Merc, the Ford kits are what comes up. The manual steering is sensitive to lack of grease, make sure everything is well lubricated, it can make a big difference. And dropping a SBF into it takes 200+ lbs off the front end, that will lighten steering effort quite a bit. But it will still take some muscle at slow speeds. That's why they had big steering wheels... LOL. The main flaw in the original design (besides the leaking) is the idler arm bushings. Ford used a rubber bushing as a 'torsion' spring to pull the steering back to center. At center, there was no 'twist' applied to the bushing, turn left or right and the twist in the bushing would try to return it to center. These were known for failing, and the current aftermarket replacements just don't hold up as I learned the hard way, so a lot of cars got converted to manual. At one time MOOG made an 'improved' design idler arm that eliminated the rubber but those have been discontinued since the '60s; I had zero luck finding one. The bushings also a huge PITA to replace, another strike against OEM power steering. At least Ford didn't integrate the PS pump with the generator like Mopar did.... The steering boxes were problematic also. With the front wheels off the ground, if you feel any 'notchiness' while turning the wheels, the worm gear bearing races are bad. Every box I ever took apart had bad races... If he decides he wants PS, go with a Borgeson conversion, that will eliminate all these issues.
OK, thanks a lot. I was going to jack this thing up and check the turns lock to lock. I have a 56 Medalist out back for parts and it was manual steering so I was going to check that one to see if they were different. But, you pretty much answered the question. I have replaced all of the ball joints, tie rod ends, idler arm, but have not checked the gearbox lube, silly me. I will have to check that for sure. They take 90W? I have a 58 Courier that has the factory style PS on it, leaky, leaky. They do steer nice if they just weren't such a leak problem. Thanks for the info!.
I did double check the gear box and it was just a little low, I topped that off. I have a shop manual and while I was looking to see what lube the box took, I found a spec page that showed manual steering as app. 5 1/4 turns lock to lock. I jacked this one up and it is a little over 4. So, maybe Mercury had a different ratio. It is muddy/snowy out back where my manual steering 56 Medalist is, but when it dries up a little I want to check that one just to see what it is for a ratio. If there is 1:1 ratio difference, that would make it steer a little harder.
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