Time for a steering box sector support

Started noticing a bit of vagueness or wander in the steering of my Dart with Borgeson P/S box. Didn't feel as tight as when I installed the box, some 3.5 years ago.

Also, taking consecutive left and right turns, the car's steering feel was gone and it felt like the wheels had to go 'over center' before the feel of control came back.

So I checked the ball joints, idler arm and wheel bearings for play. There was some bearingplay to adjust out, but the vagueness was still there.

Next day upon closer inspection, I found the entire steering box showed movement when turning the steering wheel left/right.
Both bolts on the right of the box had worked themselves loose and could be tightened about 3/4 to 1 complete turn.

Guess it's time for a sector support to relieve the daily stress on the steering box and its mount.

Interesting observation. How many turns lock-to-clock do you have?

Also, with the Borgnson box, is the turning radius larger than before (when you had the factory box)?

The Borgeson ratio is 14:1, compared to the 16:1 for a stock power steeringbox.
Stock lock-to-lock turns are 3.5, I think the Borgeson box is around 3.

Never compared turning radius but I don't recall it has changed much.

I just tightened my Borgeson box a bit after about 2,000 miles. I had some front end creaking, got about 1/2 turn on one and a little more than 1/4 turn on another. If they work loose again, I'll consider a support. Otherwise I'll just chalk it up to things settling in on a new build.

When I was retorquing the bolts I thought I noticed the simple mount support I made some time ago was already showing a crack right across or near a weld.
Didn't get a good look as I was wrenching on the floor for this 'quick fix'.
Will take a better look when my car lift is free'd up again.

probably should be noted that with these boxes comes extra stain on your front end, a sector support will help, also make sure you use loctite on your bolts, and it you can you should probably weld up your k member and brace the steering box mounts while your at it

Loctite might indeed be needed here but I recall I added lockwashers under (some of) the bolts earlier. Will have to check.

I already had welded a simple support plate on the steeringbox mount. After this pic was taken I added another small plate to triangulate it more.
The difference was noticable.




Wider than stock, and modernday tires with added caster-adjustment put some more load on the steeringbox and K-member, which is mainly when any weaklinks in the setup start showing up.

I'd ditch the lockwasher for Loctite exclusively.
https://engineerdog.com/2015/01/11/10-tricks-engineers-need-to-know-about-fasteners/

Also may need more support around the box mount. When I updated mine, I added three separate pieces around the mount in addition to grinding and redoing several of the stock welds.

Good info on that site.
I like to improve the reinforcements some more on the steering box mount.