Power steering box without the p/s pump ?

Not sure if this should be in the General section or not....

Anybody ever try the trick where you use a power steering
box, but you just connect the hose ends together and
don't use the pump ?

I like the idea of manual steering simplicity, but I also
want a quick ratio.

Take the power steering belt off, drive it around the block and let us know how it works. Do some parallel parking while your out there.

Or you can get one of the reproduction replacement manual boxes.

Did it with my Mirada, but it was race only. Actually ended up putting a manual box off a b body on it afforded a lil more header space.

Power steering boxes have more play with no hydraulic pressure feeding them and tightening them up.

A modern electric hydraulic oilpump could be helpful if you don't want to add a mechanical pump to the engine.
Toyota started using electronically controlled hydraulic pumps in their power steering setups.

Car is not running so I can't take the belt off and try it.

I thought it would feel different with the hoses coupled together
instead of just taking off the belt.

I should look at aftermarket quick-ratio manual boxes.

Ideally I'd like a quick ratio deal with the least amount
of underhood stuff.

Maybe pressurize the hoses with an acetylene tank or something.

I did it on a '69 R/T. It wandered around a lot. I ended up putting the pump back on.

I did 1 pass at the track once with the belt off. Rather than buying more shorts I put the belt back on

I have personally experianced this before.
My buddies dart used to blow the return line off once in a while and we'd have to drive it without the pump. The power box steers HORRIBLE without the pump assist. Borderline undriveable.

Well thanks guys, I guess I got my answer, BAD idea.

i did that back in the day also. as others have said, it has a ton of slop, and doesn't steer worth a hoot. i ended up going to a small steering wheel to get the feeling i wanted with the power steering hooked up. that was the best bang for the buck, and the least amount of effort. as a side note, the car wasn't any faster, and the et stayed the same.

Ran my cuda that way from 84-88. This was on the street and track. Personally I didn't have any problems with it.

As far as parallel parking wasnt a big deal. The car was moving so it wasn't hard to turn.

Cudatom, that's interesting too.

What year was your car and was it the OE steering box ?

It was a 73 cuda. I switched from a small block to a 440. Back then there weren't any good headers that would fit w/the pouwer steering pump. Well at least on my min wage budget. Think eagle headers $49.95 that and findinga pully set led to this decision.

Now don't get me wrong if you tried to turn the wheel while stationary it wash hard but nothing like the one ton at work with a straight axel and king pins. Lol

Oh yeah that was the factory gear box. Almost forgot to answer that part.

I pulled the belt on my Satellite at the track once a few years ago. Saw no performance gain, car steered like a bag of potatos. Never again.

pretty good description !

I was told by a couple of different mechanics to not run a power steering box without the power assist, it wore the recirculating ball and worm gear very rapidly, some about softer parts. I tried the removing the belt trick a couple of different times and could not see any change in performance at the track. Switching to a manual box is simple and gets rid of the power steering pump but saves very little weight. It seems like my power steering box was an aluminum housing and the manual one was cast iron, so the little I saved by losing the pump was offset by the weight of the manual box.

Danny

That's the opposite of what I've seen on these cars. The PS boxes are cast iron and the manual boxes are aluminum. Quite a bit of weight reduction by going to manual steering. Not to mention more room around the engine since the manual box is a lot smaller.
A power steering box w/ no help from the pump is a lot harder to steer than a manual box. All 4 of our cars have manual steering b/c the factory Mopar power steering is too easy and sensitive IMO.

A power steering box input shaft is not connected directly to the pinion gear(not really a pinion gear, but for ease of explanation)
Between the two, is a spring loaded directional control valve. The more torque that is applied to the input, the more oil flows to the assist. This valve needs to be able to have “slop” in order to direct fluid properly. Take the pump/ fluid out of the equation, and all you have is a spring loaded slop inputshaft.

I have a manual box in my garage right now from an 1964 B body, it is cast iron. The power steering box I took off my 72 Cuda was aluminum and it was wore out. My 1970 Road Runner had manual steering and it was cast iron. If they used aluminum boxes on manual steering, I suspect it was in the late 70's and early 80's.

Danny

Not saying you're wrong, but every old Mopar I've messed with from '67 to '75 or so...the power steering boxes were cast iron and looked like this...

And every manual box on the cars I've seen looked like this and are not cast iron...

I have 4 cars at home, all manual steering, two '69s, one '70, and one '71...all look like this...not cast iron. These are factory original boxes too. Pretty sure they are aluminum, they might be pot metal or something, but definitely not cast iron.

More reading...

If you’re a purist, then your options are somewhat limited. The factory Chrysler power unit (with its accompanying pump and high pressure line) tips the scales at over fifty (61 pounds if you include the weight of the steering fluid). Disregarding its power-assisted 15.7:1 ratio, the drag of the pump pulling off of your engine’s crank pulley is rated at a loss of 10 horsepower. Equally, the standard Chrysler manual steering box has a 24:1 ratio, giving it a lock-to-lock of 5.5 turns. Made from aluminum, Chrysler made two castings of the manual box, but weighed the same at a paltry 12 pounds.

from...
http://moparconnectionmagazine.com/gallery-boxed-in-with-flaming-rivers-manual-steering-box/