Hey guys and gals,

I am sorry I have not posted in some time but you know how life gets in the way of living some times!

Anyway, I am back to working on the truck

with my $0 budget

and decided to work on the drunken monkey steering finally. It has about 3 inches of play and when I brake (despite my best brake adjustments) it pulls hard to the left.

The truck has the hydraulic assist on it right now which is in... less than desirable condition at the moment. I have removed it after deciding the thing would need to be salvaged by a more experienced FTE than I and began to put on the manual drag link i had in my parts bin.

Well after some time swearing and finally remembering what I bought that shop manual for I found that I need one more of the disks with the ball indent in them than I had I have already pulled out the ones from the one end of the hydraulic assist drag.

Does anyone know where I could find a part like that for less than one million dollars?

Also I have one dust shield and a ripped up rubber piece that goes with it. Do I need two of them? And if so, where can I find the rubber/shield?

Thanks for everything all!

... I just had a thought. I DO need 4 of them total right?

 

Also...

When I took off the castle nut from the pitman arm ball it was left in the power unit. Anyone know how to get it out. I have disassembled it as much as I can but still cant figure out a way to get that ball out so I can use it with the manual steering drag link.

 

Mid fifty has all the draglink rebuild parts, they are inexpensive. Be sure you put it together with the parts in the right order, it is different on each end. Also be sure the grease fittings are not plugged or replace them. I took the hydraulic assist off my truck ( the very first change I made after I got it) and replaced the steering box with the Toyota PS conversion, a HUGE difference. The hydraulic assist amplifies any play in the OEM box, is numb around center (requires constant correction for wander) and is too sensitive once it kicks in, just the nature of the beast.
You need 4 of the disks and two dust/grease shields.
I can't remember for sure how the ball came out of the control unit, but it wasn't difficult. I can't remember that the ball bolted into the pitman arm tho, I thought it was welded to the pitman arm. My conversion pitman arm I got from MF came with the ball welded in. If you don't have one ask MF to send you one of their free print catalogs or download it online, it has great diagrams of how the draglink goes together.

 

If I can find it I have one that I bought several years ago for my 56 F100 and never used. If you would like it. All you have to do is pay the shipping.

Chuck

 

I would really appreciate it if you could send me the part. Thats very kind of you. Do you have a paypal or something like that? PM me your email!

I took a video of the ball in the hydro. assist and the pitman arm setup as well as some of the rest of the truck.

Truck Video

I have an other "problem" on my hands. My truck came with a box of mystery parts for the truck from the PO but he was unfortunately not the biggest on labels. If I took pictures could you all help me identify what all this is?

 

Sure post em, we like mystery ID puzzles! No guarantee on the correctness of the answers tho... (I'm pretty sure every part can't be a muffler bearing or left handed knewton valve!)

 

Looks like 1954/60 full sized Ford Passenger Car Power Assist P/S parts.

Preston Ledbetter of F100 Parts Unlimited came up with the idea in the 1970's of using these parts.

What he did was cut the trucks draglink, then thread it so it could be screwed into the P/S control valve.

The control valve used thru 1960 has large female threads. 1961/80, the threads are much smaller, so the draglink from the F1/F100's cannot be used.

Preston was a former Ford partsman (at Haberfelde Ford in Bakersfield), now deceased. Julie, myself (and maybe some of y'all) bought parts from him when he was located in San Jose.

 

Interesting piece of history Bill

I'll chip in a little - the roof of the truck that appears to be flaking is either bondo or lead. The factory liked to use lead for smoothing panels. Whatever it is, it needs to come off so you can prep the sheetmetal. If it is lead, take normal precautions.

 

Ah Preston! If it wasn't for "F-100 Pick-ups" and ol' Preston in the 80s, my 55 would have never gotten done! Ah those were the days!

Oddly, I always thought he looked a little like "Robert Preston!"

 

if he can't find it i think i have the old set-up from my '54, i'll send you. the roof looks like bondo, lead tends to crack more then flake. the only way i know how to fix the roof above the window is to cut out bad metal and weld in good.

 

merc546 has found the manual drag link with the pitman arm still attached! He is mailing it to me this week and I couldn't be more grateful. The generosity I find on this board always amazes me. Thanks again Merc!

I was reading that if there are dents in the roof one can try to flatten them out as much as possible with a hammer from the inside then "bondo" it and it would be good as newish. I have less body work experience than a t-rex except cutting out the rot in the floor of an 82 and riveting some sheet metal in its place which is hardly the fine work I will need for the truck.

I guess I'm going to have plenty of time to learn though

It looks like Numberdummy (as usual) is right on the money. That is exactly how this P/S is set up. That is a neat piece of history. I always worry about all the knowledge we lose over the years. I guess that's why I love old trucks so much.

 

Once again I highly recommend anyone contemplating doing any body work immediately call Ron Covell Ron Covell Creative Metalworking Workshops and order a copy of his excellent DVD "Basic Techniques for Working with Steel". The section explaining and demonstrating the difference between "on dolly" and "off dolly" hammer work alone is worth the price. Don't put a hammer to any body panel until you understand the difference and when to use each technique or you can make a worse mess than what you started with. A smoothing disk on a angle grinder will make it easy to finish your dent removal with no more than a skim coat of bondo. I bought my smoothing disk on ebay for about 45.00. The fancy one with the ridges by Sunchaser for twice that doesn't work any better than the smooth ones.

 

I'll probably be making a DVD purchase some time soon.

merc546 shipped out a drag link and pitman arm today and I'm very grateful. I'm always pleasantly surprised by the kindness and intelligence of the individuals on this Board. Thanks to everyone for all the knowledge, help, (and in merc's case) parts!