Has anyone used the ram assist PS setup on these trucks? Would that bolt onto a closed knuckle axle easy enough? If I recall they put one end of the ram on a bracket on the frame. Wondering what I'd need to do to make it work. And does anyone out there have a system they don't need?

 

FTE member yellow truck bought a 1967/72 (I don't recall the year) F100 4WD that a previous owner had swapped in power assist P/S

What a mess! He needed some parts for it, guess who got "elected" to find them? It was a PITA figuring out what the parts had come from.

IMO: Don't bother, all the parts are obsolete, difficult to find NOS ...and there is one type for 1973/75 F100 4WD, TWO completely different types for 1973/77 F250 4WD (High Boys).

I HATE SWAPS! People make changes, don't record what the parts come from.

Then they or subsequent owners go to a Ford dealer, lay a bunch of greasy parts on the counter, asking what are these parts from?

 

I feel your pain! I've worked on a lot of odd ball Ford projects in my younger days but I don't think I ever asked a parts counter guy to tell me what I had. Lord knows I've bought the wrong crap a few times though trying to figure out what was done before me. I owned a Pathfinder Ford van awhile back. Sold by Ford with the Pathfinder 4x4 conversion. Used a F250 HD front axle that no dealer seamed to be able to find in any books. Got real tired of being told Ford doesn't have a 79 E350 4x4.

Anyway.... I'm just looking for advise on PS. The ram assist doesn't seem like the easiest to put together from what I've learned. Looks like most folks do a 77-79 F250 system into these trucks from what I can tell. Not sure I want to go that far though. My factory steering wheel is nearly 4 ft in dia so I should be just fine.

 

Sometime in the mid 1980's, a guy came into Crenshaw Motors Ford, laid a bunch of greasy parts on the counter.

Of course, I got stuck with it, because no one else would bother. I asked what he was working on. He said "Econoline Pathfinder 4WD conversion."

I said, did you look for the Pathfinder owners manual? It lists all the part numbers for the conversion. Pathfinder by this time was out of business.

Of course it was missing. Crenshaw had the 2nd largest stock of parts in the US, so I was able to match up all the parts except the draglink, sent him down the street to the Chevy dealer....said to let me know if they had it. They did.

Pathfinder and Quigley (probably others) converted Econolines to 4WD. These were sold by Ford dealers, but FoMoCo itself had nothing to do with it.