i have a friends 30 chevy sedan in the the shop, stock car with small block,700r4, s10 rear on stock springs, front end is stock w disc conversion, i just put king pins,added some caster,set to etc, it drives ok for an old chassis with a lot of power, but..... the owner is unhappy with the steering and really since it will be a few years before this gets done my way,{body off hotrod build} and the front end is tight,we need to retrofit a steering box, his is a little sloppy and extreemly hard to turn, which makes it uncomfortable as its pretty jerky when cornering or passing a car,takes a lot more steering effort than it should. im not sure how a stock chevy box should feel, im kind of thinking the 225 60 tires are really not helping,and its only got 5 deg of caster now,its not any worse than when it had 1. since i kind of have to work with whats there im thinking a reversed corvair box woul be the simpelest thing, this is a fendered car so it has to have the box mounted inside the frame in the stock ish location....so heres my problem , i dont think the pitman shaft will be long enough to stick through the frame,and i cant go on top , below will make the drag link angle crazy...anybody done it? dont make me put a rack and pinion in this thing..its slowly crossing over to "our side",also ive heard of som poeople running a mustang box with the pitman flipped up, that may work, but what box?any body running a stock box succesfully? thanks guys
they steered like crap when they were new, use a 57 chevy truck box, and lenghten the pitman arm to get the right feel, thats what i run on my chevy, the box has too many turns lock to lock because it was on a truck, so lengthen the arm to shorten up the turns, they work real good,
i finally put an F1 box in my '32, see my profile. had literally struggled with the orig box for years, rebuilt etc and couldn't get the slop out of it. the F1 box will fit in place of original, mate ford and chevy pitmans and you will be very happy!
The Jalopy Journal
