Another article by Jared (Ford_Six)
Power Steering & Disk Brakes 2wd 65-72 .: Articles

 

interesting article. i have power steering, manual drum brakes, and shot kingpins. so i can just get a donor truck and yank off the whole front end and not even have to mess with kingpins? and i get power disc brakes? sweet. but will my tie rod and drag link fit on it?

 

I'm glad he did that, because that original article was full of bad information. IMHO


John

 

im really thinking about doing this conversion. my drums have always served me just fine for daily driving, but for towing stuff they just dont cut it.

 

You will need to make some other changes for a manual to power swap, something about the pedal pivoting differently, and of course adding a booster.
You will need to use the tie rod and drag link for the truck you get the I-beams from, as they are different lengths for different setups. I ran into this first hand using the wrong tie rod off my old truck before I did this swap, and wore out a nearly new set of tires in about 400miles.
The braking difference is huge, this thing pulls down quick now. As an example, towing a trailer load of scrap, crossed the scales at 9680lbs and it slowed quicker than it did towing the empty trailer with the 12x2 drums. Also much less fade, more predictable engagement, and best of all, no guessing which side it was going to pull to this time.

It took me about two days altogether, but it was time well spent.

I do know that the writing style isn't that great, this is pretty much my first shot at this, so if anybody needs anything explained or worded differently, let me know.

 

I'm doing this right now but I got all the parts from 3 different trucks. I've also refreshed everything as I went so new king pins seems like the right thing to me since everything is out on the ground. I did have trouble finding someone who knows how to do the king pins correctly, they must be reamed, not honed to fit correctly. I also degreased everything and panted everything with POR15 so this has taken longer than a couple days. Also, I did not get a cooler, in fact I did not see one in the 3 wrecks I pulled parts off of, they were a 74, a 75 and a 77. Why would ya need a cooler and will I be OK without one? Can't say I've ever seen a power steering cooler before.

 

The cooler I used is basically a serpentine hard line that bolts to the frame below the pump, and cools the fluid heading back to the pump. Any hydraulic fluid under pressure will generate heat, and the pumps and boxes are very sensitive to overly hot fluid. Over the years Ford really cut back on the cooler, and that is the cause of failure for so many pumps in the 80s, those only had a small loop on the main crossmember under the engine. This would get caked with oil, and all nicely insulated so the fluid would be hot going back to the pump. The cooler these trucks should have looks like a mini radiator and goes on one of the pump bolts, right in the flow of air from the fan.

 

I was reading your article on power steering. I'm close to a complete restoration and needing power steering assist cylinder and 67' grille. Any ideas or input would be great.Thanks