Years ago I put rack & pinion steering on a 39 Plymouth coupe, which was the 1st year (outside of the 34 one year run) of independent front suspension. Its probably the same basic design as under your car.
If I remember correctly, the 39 was a rear steer (tie rods behind the spindles). I used a power steering rack from a mid 1990s Chevy Cavalier (its a 4,000lbs car). Those racks had the inner tie rod connections at the center of the rack rather then at the outer edges (I think GM used them through 2004, maybe later, PS or manual steering) I modified a center link to bolt to the rack (instead of bolting the inner tie rods directly to the rack), and had both ends extended out to the length of the original 39 Plymouth center link, then just used the tie rod sleeves and tie rods from the 39 to complete the steering. The rack mounting points were almost exactly under the 39 frame rails. I made brackets to mount the ends of the rack to the Plymouth frame. I had to cut the original steering column and weld a steering U joint to the end to connect the original steering column to the rack. I used a power steering pump off of a mid 80s 5th Ave. At highway speeds, the car was a bit twitchy, buy I suspect had I reduced the pressure output of the pump, I could have solved that problem (the car got sold shortly after it was drivable). I also believe the car with the rack had a slightly larger turning radius, but it was workable for most driving necessities.
That build era would have been around the year 2,000 and probably towards the beginning of that conversion process. I believe an online search could probably bring up info on it, it was a popular conversion for a few years .I know the center link set up had several different approaches as time went on, it was the most difficult part of the deal.
if its here, it would have been just after the big board overhaul of 2003 and probably in the street rod section.
I moved from that to the Dakota swap, and even that has progressed from the early days.
