I have a 63 F100 (not unibody) and have reached the point where I need to make a decesion about the brakes and steering. The truck has the straight front axle and the 63 only drum brakes with the one sided wheel cylinders.
I would love to switch to a Volare, Aerostar or Mustang II front and get power steering and power brakes with dual master and front discs. The truck will be daily driven not show quality. Just want a good safe dependable truck. Are there parts available to run a power steering pump on a 292 engine ? I live in a town house and everything I can do I do at a friends house. Is there anyone or any good shop within a few hours of Maryland that would be willing to do a large project like this for a fair price and do good work ? I would love to do it all myself but I can not at home and could not take up the space for as long as would be needed at my friends house. My only other option would be to buy a house with a garage and in this area I could not afford it unless I want to start driving hours to work each way.
Any Help is appreciated.
Andy63...

 

Andy, What you are talking about doing is going to be painfully expensive. Even with a decent shop and plenty of mechanical skills this job is not for beginners. Unless you can afford the cost, I'd estimate over 3000.00 you should consider just driving and enjoying your truck as is. Join the local car club, attend some shows and get "hooked up"with the old Ford scene in your area. You may find another truck, or a project truck that you could finish using your truck as parts or as a trade. One of the locals used a 79 F100 frame and the frame horns off the 63 to build a pretty nice truck. Fabricating the front cab mounts would be a lot easier than clipping or installing mustang II front end on your truck. This way you would get all Ford and late model IFS, PS, PDB and the fuel tank under the bed. But anyway you slice this it is an intimidating project, especially if you don't have tools and a garage. Hate to be a wet blanket here but I have seen many good projects never get off the ground. Just drive and enjoy your truck.

 

I have just installed poower steering on my 62 unibody I went with the rack and pinion steering. I went to the junk yard and got a rack off of a 1991 Escort and mounted it to my axle .. To make this work you have to install a slip joint in the steering shaft going from the rack to the steering column. the reason for this is so that the axle has forgiveness in the steering shaft. If you had a solid steering shaft every time you hit a bump it would jam against the steering wheel. I installed power steering for about $150.00.

Brian

 

Hi Brian, I suspect a lot of folks would be interested in your project. Can you get pictures and write up an article on how you did this, and post it here or link it?

 

Brian,

Any info you can give to explain how you went about the rack and pinion installation would greatly help alot of us "strong arms". Can you give us some info?? Pictures??

What do you mean by a slip joint? how did you connect to your axle??

Jay

1964 elbow wrecker

 

William.
When I drive the truck it wanders all over the road. The king pins and this area of the suspension have been rebuilt replaced. Nothing is bent. The truck has good new tires. The truck does not pull to one side or the other it just wanders. I bet the steering box is original. Would rebuilding or replacing this help the truck wander less ? I know the steering box is expensive. I have also seen a kit that is basically a shock that mounts horizontally on the front axle and is advertised to help with bump steer and tire wear. I think this shock may make the armstrong steering even harder though in slow speed parking and such.
Thanks for the help
Andy63...

 

Check your toe. No not your foot, the trucks.
Place a small board across the tire on one side and one on the other so there resting on the sidewall of the tire half way up.
Use a tape measure and run it in front of the boards then move to the back of the boards. I think you'll find the back is a smaller a number (toe out) and thats why it wonders. Reset it for 1/16 to 1/8th toe in. (front smaller them back. That should help.

44

 

Andy,
I, too, have a '63 and purchased a front disk kit from ECI. As I am in the process of redoing the front end as well, the truck is not roadworthy yet. However, I can tell you the kit has mounted beautifully, as claimed, but I haven't gotten to the master/power boost setup yet. ECI also sells that, but a friend gave me a complete power/boost out of an '86 Grand Am which I hope I can use. My truck, too, wandered all over the road and I have replaced everything from king pins to springs. By the way, my front shackles on the front of the front springs were really sloppy, so am hoping by using new bushings, springs, etc., that the slop will be a thing of the past. It's been a looooooong process and will continue as I am also going to experiment with putting a mid '80s Toyota power steering box in my truck. This isn't something new, as I read about it in a truck mag 5+ years ago and it wasn't new then. The only problem is that is was somewhat popular on mid '50 Fords and not done on early to mid '60 Fords. I have chosen this because I have neither the skills or money to purchase and then pay someone to graft some sort of clip onto my truck. The power box cost me about $85 and you will have to figure a safe way to marry the top portion of the metric splined pitman from the Toyota to the bottom of the pitman from your Ford. I had mine beautiflly welded and hope it is strong enough. When I origianlly read about this set-up, the article suggested you could just us the old Ford pitman and ream down hard on the pinch bolt set-up and all would be Ok. I chose to combine the two. However, I didn't mean to be so long winded, but that's what I have done so far. Good luck. Jim

 

hi, guys! congrats on motivating me to register, as up til now ive only read thru the forums. good to be here! ok, down to business- ive seen the steering rack on a straight axle upgrade you guys are talking about. first things first-i would scrounge around a few wrecking yards and get width measurements on the racks, as the set up i saw was from a taurus. now take note of HOW the rack is mounted. its kinda like a clamp arraingement. now what this guy did is machine 2 DOUBLE clamps to fasten the rack to the i-beam. I.E. fasten the clamp to the i-beam, then the rack to the clamp. when you look at how the rack is mounted stock you'll see what i mean. and make sure the clamps you make are AT LEAST AS THICK as the stock clamp bushings. picture some of the aluminum steering column clamps that the rodders use-drilled and counter-sunk for allen screws. note that these clamps were machined to the profile of the i beam on one end and the rack body on the other-this guy chose to eliminate the stock bushings that ford used. the idea here is to use the clamp as a spacer here as well, so the mount points for the tie rod ends are in line with the rack. this lining up is important, as if there is any angle in the tie rods during straight-ahead travel you will see bump steer! next item is the steering column. look up a hot rod company named FLAMING RIVER. they have a nice adjustable spring loaded column connecter that may work. SUMMIT RACING carries this and other items, so check it out. after that, just fabricate tie rod adapters (threaded tube). i would suggest matching the power steering pump to the rack, though suspect that an early (79 to 85?) fox bodied mustang pump would be good. fabricating hoses might be a challenge, so i would suggest taking the hoses from the donor car, scavanging the hardware, and having them re-made. AVOID THE URGE TO USE SCREW CLAMPS ON HIGH PRESSURE HOSES-PEOPLE WILL MAKE FUN OF YOU! one other thought- some of these racks were manual, like the escort. the ratio would be worth looking into, as it might still offer easier steering without the power steering hassles. anyways, hope this helps, or at least doesnt cause any divorces! post back with any questions and i,ll help if i can.

 

I just wanted to clarify my post after reading the post from Old65. The power steering set up I mentioned is to be used on the factory staight axel, not a I-beam set up. The power steering hoses would have two metric ends and one American end that would connect to the power steering pump you select. In all honesty I do not know what pump to use and am somewhat confused when I hear folks talk about matching the pumps with steering boxes or racks they are trying to use. I am continually amazed at the knowledge out there, this is a fun group. Thanks, Jim

 

what i described whas on a straight axle f-100. as i said, you would clamp the rack to the axle(read that as 'straight axle'). as to the hose ends, that's why i recommended scavanging the hardware/ends off the hoses from whatever donor gave up the rack. once you have the proper hardware for the hoses, making them is the easy part. one thing ive found is that a lot of places wont make hoses without griping. ive found that places that service or maintain forklifts and hydraulic ram assemblies will usually make what you want for a reasonable fee. the reason i recommend the earlier mustang/fox body pump is simply for the 'v-belt' style pulley and the possibility of easy bracket adaption-admittedly, early FE or 6 cylinder p/s bracketry may only be found off of passenger car blocks-happy hunting on that! lastly, some of the early truck guys have had problems with the power steering pump they used literally 'overpowering' the rack, I.E. making the rack TOO easy to turn- scary when you're at freeway speeds, feels like steering wander. the mustang style pump should apply around the same pressure as the taurus, escort, etc pumps do.sorry about the 2nd long winded post, hope ive helped-good luck!

 

The info on the PS is great - I was wondering how to handle it in my 61 stepside, and thanks to you guys, I now have a direction. Now if I can just get the snow to melt so I can find my truck again...

 

What no one has said is what kind of "slip-joint" they used so that the steering column would not be jammed into the passenger compartment when you hit a bump. That would the secret key to the whole conversion. I am intrigued by that question as the Midwest has plenty of bumps.
I normally will use an IFS, but a friend has a 65 Econoline and she would like power steering on it. So, I have wondered about this installation for some time.

 

hi guys! im in the process of tracking down the truck that had the rack setup-if i can get ahold of it, i'll post some pictures. as i said previously, take a look at the 'flaming river' brand links-the last one i saw was spring loaded and adjustable. don't know about ease of travel- one thought is to weld together a link using a driveshaft slip joint out of a small jap car driveshaft. also, 'comer14' posted that he had done it, he might have an idea on this. it seems that any small diameter driveshaft slip/spline joint with @ 6" to 8" of travel would sufice, but i would measure wheel travel and go from there. come to think of it, the slip area out of a ranger/bronco II 4X4 might work, i'll look under mine and post back. take care!

 

Just found a place that has a power steering assist unit that bolts on to the front axle and is powered by a standard GM PS pump.
Classic Performance Products has a kit for this.
Andy63...