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Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:57 am
by Monkey Man
OK, I have tried to fit the Saginaw reverse rotation steering box again but to no avail with the bulk of the box hangs down, not sits up on My truck, maybe I need to look at it differently after a good sleep...
I did get a thought though, I cruised the net and the Saginaw 525, Corvair and Vega reversed boxes and an early F100 Gemmer seem to have the same spline to look at, can anyone tell me of a right angle box with the correct rotation and spline to adapt into an M37 that is of a better reduction ratio to negate the need for power steering, if the Gemmer B60 was a lower geared box the steering would be quite nice and a continuous bearing system on that again would mean comparitively easy and smooth steering indeed. Maybe I am just talking Crap but it seems seeing as I have to make a mount for any box I get plus I already have a universal system of sorts fitted then a box I can invert (with respect to your trucks given it is Right hand drive modified already) with the correct spline on the output plus better reduction would seem to me to be far simpler than power steering in my case...
Past midnight here, had to get this idea off my mental process and onto the forum before sleep fragged it up and the idea was lost forever.....

MM :D

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:40 pm
by Monkey Man
Can anyone give me a name of the steering box output spline or is it simply an indexed, tapered spline of set dimensions? I think the drag link ball from the pitman arm to the drag link is standard also? There used to be plenty of this stuff about to "play" with but given scrap prices now anything that is not needed somewhere goes to get melted down and that's it, no more parts for old trucks :-(

MM :D

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:40 am
by achiem37
The standard large chevy power steering box spline has 28 splines and 4 master splines. This is a tapered shaft with the large diameter nearest the box being 1.250". The pitman arms are machine to draw up on this shaft about 1/3-1/2 way with the nut. I just had a custom pitman arm made from a place in California called Rareparts.com. Check them out for custom work. The arm I had made was drilled and tapered reaamed for one of their ball end studs, This ball end stud is basically a tapered shaft with a ball on the end. From memory I think the ball diameter was 1.25" but I could be wrong. This is the size of the ball stud for the M37 steering arms. The part number is RP27642. The PS spline is a standard size but I have never seen drawings of it's true dimensions. I know know that on my custom pitman arm the spline diameter started at 1.100" and then tapered up but not the full 1.25". I can pull it off and measure if you need the larger dimension . This way the arm never runs up off of the splines. I think the covair and other boxes use a smaller size spline for the pitman arm compared to the heavier full size truck splines on the reverse rotation boxes. Terry up in Canada.

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:13 pm
by Monkey Man
Thanks Terry, a 2" longer pitman arm would allow me to mount the box higher and although I might get a small amount of suspension steering from the larger angle it'd allow me to run the Saginaw PS box that Bryan sent me, I do have to talk to a bloke later this week or early next week re: how this should all be done but the more info I go to him with the better the questions I can ask...

MM :D

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2013 5:38 pm
by Tom @ Snake River
MM, if I can help you any way, look at my web-site, it does show the placement for the steering box bracket.
If there is clearance problems with the pitman arm, I use the origional donor arm and I do stock ball-studs that fit.
Tom @ Snake River

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2013 6:22 pm
by Monkey Man
Origonal donor arm from the Saginaw? (if so is it any longer? I am trying to use the arm from the M37 and it runs very close to the steering box given the right hand drive inversion of the steering box. IF I can figure this out it would be good and ONLY if I can sus it out would anyone have an origonal mounting bracket they could sell me? (or I'll fab one here as postage has gone to absolute poo in the last few years).

MM :D

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:40 am
by Tom @ Snake River
It is the origional arm from the Dodge saginaw, it is longer and I do have a ball stud to convert it.
I do have brackets for sale that are modified to allow for more clearance.

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 2:18 pm
by Monkey Man
Well Tom, how much longer is the arm?, how much for one with a ball stud? The bracket sounds good as I have a vertical plate the origonal box is inverted and mounted on so it would almost be a "bolt up" affair bar the column that I would need to adapt the spline setup on.....
As you can see, an inverted PS box would take up the whole area up next to the chassis leaving me with little or no clearance so it'd be dragging or binding on the box depending what the suspension and steering was doing at the time causing disasterous consequences, the longer steering arm would allow me to lift the box higher and obtain more clearance between the steering components and the box, just depends on how much longer it is...

Old piccy of just the plate

Image

Current setup

Image

MM :D

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 6:38 pm
by Tom @ Snake River
Maybe I don't understand. This thing looks like a right hand drive. Of which I would be clueless.
I do not have any of the arms available at this time. They are only about 4 cm longer.

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 7:36 pm
by Monkey Man
Yes Tom, you have it in one, my truck is the only right hand drive I know of (Maybe the only one?), converted back in the 60's from what I understand and as a result I have to invert the saginaw box like the origonal box is to fit it, that makes for the bulk of the box to hang down under the output spline as opposed to on top as in your LHD conversions hence the problem of the pitman arm running too close to the body of the box. If you can locate an arm the 40mm extra should do the trick nicely, it really was running too close by not a lot at all, I was even contemplating shaving off one of the casting "horns" on the saginaw to aid the clearances but I have no ideas as to wether that would stuff the box. Does the chassis bracket only fit one way on the box? If so I suspect I will have to fabricate my own bracket and would only need the arm and ball adapter, what are your thoughts? I appreciate your help :D

MM :D

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 8:52 pm
by Monkey Man
Scratch the though of the steering box bracket not working, of course it would, inverting the box and flipping to the right hand rail will put the bracket exactly where needed so I will need one of those for sure, Duh...... Been a long day, apologies to all for my stupidity!! :roll:
So, I did look and 40MM would make for plenty of clearance for the arms, all I would need to do is figure out how to adapy my column linkages to your column linkages with some sort of slip joint or rubber insulated box adapter.

MM :D

Re: Steering Upgrade?

Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 11:25 pm
by Monkey Man
Has anybody got a steering arm from the origonal Saginaw steering box left over from their install?

MM :D