Well, I'm trying to get my '29 Roadster off the ground, and I've been looking around to see how people have their steering set up on their Model A's, but haven't been able to find any kind of detailed pictures. Can anyone post up any pics of what they did, any info on modifications that had to be made or parts used would be good too. I've asked before, but everyone kept saying, "buy the Tardell book". Well, I did, and it's helped a bit, but I'm running a Y-block, not a flat head which is what "the book" is geared towards. Space, or lack there of, is more of an issue with the Y-block. Oh yea, running a stock model a frame under a '29 Roadster body, 292 Y-block with a 3 speed transmission. Trying to keep the rack and pinion away from my roadster. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I forget, is the starter on a Y block on the drivers side? If not,there should be no reason you can't run something like an F1 or F100 Ford pickup box from the early to mid 50's in there. I am running a 56 pickup box in the model a frame under my 27 and it only took some reworking on the flange to get it to fit in there. These make a very sweet steering box for hot rods, almost like power steering and they are traditional. If the starter is on the drivers side it might present some clearance issues. Don
Don, The starter is on the passenger side, but the oil filter is sitting on the drivers side on the back of the engine and is in the way. I'm looking at a filter relocation kit which should solve that. One of the other problems is the engine mounts which are on the center of the block, and somewhat interfere with the stock location of the steering box. I'm going to make some mounts to gain some clearance and hopefully solve that problem by scooting the actual frame mount location up about 4 inches. I don't really know if I want to do the modification that's in the Tardell book to the F-1 Box that I have, but unless there's a way to trim down the flange, it's looking like the only real option. I also thought of using the box out of a '37 Chevy pick up, which looks like it may be a good option but have heard it may be hard to steer (http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=580014). I'll look at that F-1 box again, seeing as I have a stock Model A box with bad internals I can yank the flange off of, or I can try and make the Chevy box work.
I ran a '67 Mustang box under the frame on my '28 Tudor, and a VW bus box mounted the same way on my current RPU. You can mount these boxes under the frame with the pittman arm pointed up so the draglink is reasonably parallell to the ground to eliminate bump steer. No clearance problems with an SBC, so they should work with the Y block.
I'm interested in your solution. Y block in an A frame puts the frame mounts right at the stock steering location. I'm planning on a '37 box with cross steer, but not that far down the road yet. RB
I am using the 30's gm truck box on my "A". The stock mount is very nice and same overall design as the VW bus box many use. I never had the mount for the box so I made one using SBC connecting rods and a split 1/8" sleeve. This makes my steering column angle much better also. I just need to weld some strong gussets and it should be very strong.
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