My son in-law is doing a crown vic swap in his 63 F100. His stock steering box is very good, much better design than the earlier box. Its somewhat similar to my stock box in size and mounting. I will be getting the box from him and may swap it out. Has anyone done this or know of any problems I might run into ?

 

Just guessing but the steering column shaft may be a different length, also you may have to swap the pitman arm too. Not sure if they are the same,

 

Tinman52 , thanks for your reply. I'm going to haul everything he pulls off it back to the home shop. Visually the pitman arm mounts to the sector shaft the same way. I don't know yet if the sector shaft is the same diameter. I'm fairly sure the steering shaft is a different length.

 

I now have his mint 63 steering box mounted in my 55. There are some differences. The good news is the frame hole for the sector shaft lines up perfectly. I had to drill the frame for the new 3 bolt mount location and slightly clearance the top frame rail. The steering shaft comes up at a slightly different angle making for a slightly flatter rake on the steering wheel. My stock wheel fits and it feels comfortable. the 55 column tube fits but will have to be shortened slightly. The column tube mount to the dash had to be moved toward the drivers side door about 1 inch. I have to figure something out for the horn button.

I have to use the 63 pitman arm because the sector shaft is smaller on the 63 box, The 63 drag link is 14.25 inches long and the 55 is 12.75 inches long. The 63 pitman arm is slightly longer than the 55 arm. All this means is I will be fabricating an ajustable drag link with a 11/16 tie rod end on the pitman arm and
the stock 55 ball stud on the spindle arm end. I will be using part of my 55 drag link for this, luckily its DOM tubing and not solid which makes things fairly simple.

 

Thanks for the follow up.
It's great when you can re-purpose old parts and make them work!