I'm trying to engineer a safe sprint car type steering system for my modified project. I can construct a shaft and support from the steering box to get the arm attachment(spined shaft) outside the cowl. This would require welding, pinning, etc. I want a safe system. Would an early Mustang box rotated sideways Work? If I remember correctly, those boxes dropped down considerably from the gears. Horizontally, it might be long enough to get the steering arm outside the cowl.Has anyone tried this. Anyone have a better solution? Sam
Man anything can be done. We built the whole freaking steering system on the Fly before we realized it was off of a Chris Craft boat,which incidentally steers backewards! We had to build a bellcrank system to remedy this problem. I may have pics at home of the steering buildup. No promises though.
MoJunk, Find yourself a mopar steering box out of a duster or polara. They are aluminum manual box that when installed in a cowl will give you the arm dropping down. One sold on ebay for $10.look at ebay item # 2446794942. There probably tons of them in your local wrecking yards.
I think that bellcrank is genius Root. I'd like to see some up close pictures of it if you have some. Mounting, materials, bearings, etc. You know you could solve a lot of goofy steering problems with that idea. Anyone ever considered a bellcrank near the front cross member to convert side steer to cross steer? I have thought about this a lot. You'd still need to get the cross steer pivot set up correctly of course but you would have the freedom of placing the actual seering box and primary drag link wherever you wanted without jacking up the geometry. Make it look rediculous enough and you could have a whole crowd of douchebags waving their arms and yelling "BUMPSTEER!". How about it? Lets see some pics.
[ QUOTE ] Anyone ever considered a bellcrank near the front cross member to convert side steer to cross steer? [/ QUOTE ] OOOOooooo......THAT"S an idea. Solves a couple problems I've had and could save me some $ Actually,I think that was done on some of the front engine dragsters.
hammeredabone, if you have done the mopar box swap, PLEASE post a how to... I've been waiting for that one for awhile, or at least post pix... Please! Jay ps, did I say please!!!???
hammeredabone, thanks for the tip. I have a Mopar salvage closeby that's loaded with only Mopars-lots of 60's Mopar muscle cars. I know they have Dusters and maybe a Polara. I assume the shaft coming out of the box is long enough to get me outside of the cowl? raven 61, i'll get two. Sam
Early Mustang,I think the Pitman arm points up when used for side steer.Sprintcar boxes point down. The Aluminum Mopar box would be a better choice.It's a little bulky,but will give you more offset left to right so it's easier to get the pitman arm on the outside of the cowl. The Duster/Demon boxes look the same as the Polara/big car boxes,but the big car box is supossed to have needle bearings instead of bushings and the Duster box will have a quicker ratio. I'd consider the big car box and lengthen the pitman arm,to get the ratio down and be able to mount the box higher to clear my big feet.
I used an IH Scout 4x4 box. With my body narrowed 4" it stick out of the cowl with out adding to it. I have it mounted hi to clear clutch and brake peddels. Using a long pitman arm the stearing ratio seams to be about right.
you can modifiy a ford f100 to do the same things too.cut down the steering colum...extend the pitman shaft out...and use a big truck pitman arm off a gmc or ford.looks good.blacktopbrawler just did it in his a c-dan.
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