The steering box in the hot rod appears to be the source of the front end vibrations. It's a manual box from a slant six 1964 Belvedere.
It's my understanding that most slant six boxes had bushings instead of bearings. Is this true? If so, can they be replaced or converted to bearings?

I've adjusted the box a few times over the last 15 years and the screw is bottomed out. There is still slop in the box.
I still get a hard vibration in the steering wheel that goes away when the car is turning. The rest of the front end and steering components are tight.

Yep, Slantys had bushings instead of bearings. Replace it with a V8 box.

-Daty

Since the box will be coming out is there a possibility you could sub in another box to confirm that that was it before you go to the trouble of rebuilding the /6 box

The box is the problem. I can't take out any more slack. The pitman arm is rattling back and forth against the steering input shaft as the car goes down the road.

If I had a cheap manual steering box available I would not entertain the thought of rebuilding this box. Those things are not exactly common at the junk yards.

This car will be going up for sale. I've already sunk a bunch of time and money in it. If someone were to be so kind as to drop a new steering box in my lap I'd gratefully install it in the car.

Can you replace the bushings inside a slant six box with bearings?

I see no reason you couldn't find those bearings at a bearing supply. If you can hold on, I have a brand new empty box out in the shop and I can probably see the numbers on the ends of the bearings. I'll look later today and post.

I think you may have two seperate issues. The bushings/needle bearings support the sector shaft within the housing, but the interface between the worm gear and the sector shaft teeth determines how much sector shaft adjustment is needed or left. Since you say that the adjuster is bottomed out replacing the bushings may not solve the problem. I say may because it might be that once the sector shaft is tightened up with either new bushings or bearings the proper fit between the worm gear and the sector shaft teeth MAY be restored. I've never tried to replace bushings with bearings, but it should be possible to come up with some type of replacement bushings even if it does require some machine work. This is a lot of maybes. I would first contact Firm Feel and see if they have a usable core they would part with. Good luck.

Bearings are Torrington B-1812 OR 8-1812 ... can't quite make out whether that first character is an "8" or a B". Both bearings are the same.

I was planning on going through the steering box. If I do that, I'd rather replace the bushing with bearings.
There is a problem in the box and I need to find out what it is.

I do appreciate the bearing part numbers.

My concern with buying a used box is that mine is a used box and there's no guarantee that I'd get anything better than what I've already got.

While this is no guarantee that a junkyard box will be any better, I should just mention that C-body / B-van boxes are beefier and will bolt in (w/ large spline pitman).

(Larger case can cause some clearance issues with some headers).

Rick