well we found out this week that the power steering rack will not work from the cavileer. It would sit too low to the ground and doesnt measure width wise very good. Also would make a funky angle for the steering column.

Its been awhile since I updated so here goes. I went with a tank out of a jimmy blazer. It is a 20 gal tank and already baffled for efi. I went with a stock fuel pump to fit the tank. Its fuel pressures and flow was pretty close to a stock pump from a 97 ram. The measurements of tank fit really well under the floor in the back. I have room back there to also put a tool kit among a few other things. I will have to buy a regulator yet but that shouldnt be an issue.

We took all the door handles out of the car and removed 57 yrs of dried up grease and reinstalled. Amazing how well that stuff works now! We also had to put in 2 new side windows in.

Yesterday we got the bottom end of the engine painted a blue color and will get the top half painted as soon as we change the plenum gasket and install a dorman bypass pulley for the a/c. On saturday we are planning on getting the firewall and frame prepped for paint.

Power steering will still be an issue. I bought a kit from borgenson that alot of mustang II people use to reduce pressure from a gm pump to the mustang gear box but not sure if it will work with my ram pump to the orig gear box. So if anyone has experience let me know.

I did a Saginaw pump with the stock 57 steering gear years ago on a 57 Coronet. As I recall the Saginaw put out about 10-15 PSI more than the spec on the original Chrysler pump. It really didn't seem to make any difference, although if I were to do it now I would probably use the pressure reducer just on general principal.

I don’t know if you have any experience driving the 57-62 full size, power steering equipped Mopars or not but if you haven’t driven them you will quickly find that they are almost effortless and have virtually no road feel. Personally I don’t particularly care for them which is why I went with a manual steering box when I built my 57 Plymouth……of course with the HEMI over the front tires it’s at the other extreme.

The one suggestion I would make is to pull the steering box and column out now before you put the engine in and send the box off to be rebuilt. About 90% of the old gears I’ve come across leak and/or are loose. Once the engine is in the only way to get the gear out is to remove the large floor board plate and pull the gear and steering column out thru the passenger compartment………and it is not a pleasant job at all.

I had a 54 new yorker and that was always interesting power steering. lol. One issue I have is the pump from the magnum engine is a serpentine setup and produces 1500 psi. The gear box on the wagon is rated at 700psi. Can I buy an outside pressure reducer that I can adjust? Thanks for the suggestion about pulling out the column and gear box. Once we put the engine in we will know more if it would be possible to make a steering rack work which would be a whole lot better then using original gear box and column.

This might not be the right forum to ask, but for those of you that may have put a rack & pinion setup in a 60s Mopar, what rack did you use, and how do you like it? Gene

Putting a Rack and Pinion into a 57 and up Forward Look would be a bit of a challenge due mainly to the pan and crossmember location….there is just no room to mount a rear steer rack. Putting the rack forward of the crossmember would require adapting front steer spindles……which might be possible ( I seem to recall that there were some front steer Mopars in the mid-late 70s).

Updating to a later power steering box might be an option but again probably a lot of work, mostly due to the odd ball shape of the Chrysler gear (shown below). The only stock steering box I know of that is physically close in shape tuck of the Chrysler unit is the late 60s and 70s Ford truck. I have also seen Saginaw boxes modified with a longer pitman shaft and lengthened housing…..but you have to careful and make sure it is set up for a rear steer application.

LOL Yeah, I’ve thought about different steering options…….. but never got past the brain storming part.

solution

http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/716058-buildup-06-crown-vic-front-suspension-into-67-f100.html

unfortunately we already have all new tierod ends, disk brake conversion kit, rotors, well just about everything.

Can I ask why the Cavalier rack didn t work?
I m not familiar with the 57 but on a 55-56 something like this should
be a close fit

We have an Intrepid rack sitting here, an Intrepid rack is a front steer version of a rear steer Cavalier rack. I have mounted several Cavalier racks on these old Mopars before, I don't picture it working on this car at all.
Reasons a Cavalier/Intrepid rack won't work:
1) The 57 frame is way too wide, the Intrepid rack is several inches too short to reach the frame rails, mounting it would be a pita.
2) Because of the location of the torsion bars, a rear steer rack (the car has rear steering) would have to mount below the torsion bars (there is not enough room above them) and that would place the rack below the frame crossmember, and in a dangerous location with absolutely no protection of any kind.
3) Because the rack would have to be mounted so low, and behind the sump of the oil pan, the rack would have to be mounted so the steering column connection would face straight up for the steering to enter the car interior at the firewall. That would place the rack at a 90 degree rotation from how it would normally be mounted. I wouldn't have an issue mounting the rack at some rotation from normal, but 90 degrees is a stretch in my mind. Keep in mind, the rack is still hanging out in nowhere land, and we don't know what issues the exhaust might also add to the equation.

That brings us to converting the car from a rear steer to a front steer. Without actually dissembling the parts, it appears possible to swap the steering arms side to side and bend them for proper Ackerman, and convert to front steer. Of course, we have not yet mounted the disc brake calipers or rotors, the car currently has brake drums with no backing plates and tires bolted to the drums, there is a lot of room for steering arms to move around. That might all change with the addition of functioning brakes.

Assuming (I'm growing to really dislike that word) the brake deal should somehow work out with the steering arm swap, will that infamous Intrepid rack work on the front? Well, the frame in front of the crossmember is closer together then it is behind the crossmember, the rack might actually be able to be mounted, except for the steering wheel connection. With the rack centered in the car, the steering wheel connection is nearly perfectly lined up with the frame rail.

We also have a mounting height concern with mounting a front steer rack, we have to be able to miss the lower control arm struts. The rack almost has to mount above the struts, below them places the rack down in the danger zone.

If I offset the rack 3" towards the passenger side, the steering column connection is now centered, height wise, at the center of the crossmember. I suppose we could cut a hole through the crossmember to run the steering shaft through, and enclose it with a piece of round tubing. Hopefully it would clear the starter. there might be an issue with the passenger side tire making contact with the end of the rack on a tight turn. Mounting the rack in this position would require some custom brackets, the rack isn't long enough to shift to either side without making brackets to do so.

If I offset the rack 4" towards the driver side, the steering wheel connection would sit just outside the frame rail. The steering shaft would have to pass between the lower control arm and the frame bumper stop, inside the lower shock mount on the control arm. My concern here is that if the suspension bottoms out, the steering shaft might get pinched between the control arm, shock, and the frame. Not something that even remotely sounds good to me. There is also the issue of the driver side front wheel making contact with the end of the rack when turned sharply.

At this point, the biggest concerns are we really don't know how much room we have between the motor and anything else, weather or not the transmission or the exhaust is going to be an issue, and what incite functioning brakes might bring concerning the steering arms and converting to front steer.

I thought maybe someone has converted a 60s/early 70s Mopar to rack & pinion steering, and there may be answers to questions I haven't even thought of yet. Gene

Forgot about the torsion bars

I stumbled across this today, and thought I would bring it up to date with what we have done.

We ended up going with the factory power steering unit. The pressure bypass worked out good, the steering functions as well as it did when the car was new. We have a tight steering box, and everything on the front suspension has new or rebuilt parts.
Once we had the motor mounted, the very limited exhaust exit options under the car eliminated any steering rack option. Things are very congested down there between the steering, the torsion bars, the oil pan, the transmission, and (2) 2 1/4" exhaust pipes.

We used a 8.8 rear axle from a Ford Explorer. It has the disc brakes, and a 3:73 Limited slip rear gear. The Explorer axle has mounting places added to attach to the car's leaf springs. The Ford rear end is pretty narrow for the wagon, we will need wheels with a max of 3 1/3 backspacing or the tires will rub on the inner fenders. We had to buy a ujoint flange to match up with the Mopar u joint. (Sorry, I don't have the part number, or where we bought it. it was a standard Ford part though.) The car has a disc brake conversion and a GM booster and master cylinder (all new parts that all came with the car, so no info on where it came from). The brakes are awesome.

We did use the Jimmy tank and fuel pump. We had to get a return line regulator, one that dead headed would not reduce the pressure on the 97 Mopar port injection rail.

We used a Hot Wire wiring kit. It is a very nice kit and worked well. The tech was very good, they were very helpful when I did a dumb thing, and walked me through the "fix". My dumb thing was we rewired the car. It was some cheapo wiring kit that was incorrectly wired at the fuse block. Buy a good wiring kit, not the cheapest thing you can find. We ordered out car wiring kit as a 60 & 70 Mopar replacement wiring kit. The engine harness we ordered for a 57 Dodge car with the 5.9 gas motor. What we didn't realize was the original 57 Dodge had a key and a push button start (that stuff was all gone from our wagon). We wired the car with the key to crank, with ignition and accessories. The engine harness we ordered was for a key with ignition and a push button crank. When we cranked the motor with our key, we didn't have any power to the ignition, and as soon as we left off the crank, we had ignition. Once we moved the crank to a push button, the car started and ran great. It was a pretty frustrating few days before me and the tech guy found my issue. He bent over backwards as we walked through the mess I created.

We did have to cut our predestine floor pan and enlarge the trans tunnel about 2" to clear the driveshaft. We also had to drill a 2 3/8" hole for the engine wiring harness to pass through the firewall. We did remove the factory heater core assembly, we were concerned about clearance and it had to come off to install the motor. We were (and still are) concerned about the condition of the heater core. I believe the assembly would clear the motor, but if the core is bad, a different system will have to be designed. For now, the hole is covered with a piece of sheet metal. We adapted a gas pedal assembly and cable from a 97 Dodge truck to the car.

We added a counsel to house the automatic shifter that was adapted from something else, with home made linkage. The engine control computer, the relays and the fuse boxes are currently in the counsel as well, but they may be moved shortly. Seats and seat belts out of a late model Durango were installed. The goal we had was to get the car drive able by the end of last summer, then upgrades would be made this spring. We managed to accomplish our goal by the beginning of August and probably logged around 1,000 mile until it was parked in the fall. I don't have pictures of the assembled car, but i have pictures of it with the front clip off. Maybe my son will post up pictures of it as it was seen on the streets last fall. Gene