Day 1 and 2 of the steering/suspension, now add brake, project. I'll post a link to a photo album once the project's done, or I run into a snag.

Day 1 - went really smooth. Removed the power steering pump and got the cab part of the steering column ready for removal, all I needed to do at this point was remove the firewall bracket and clamp, and remove the column from the rag joint, or so I thought. It wasn't until I was finishing the day that I realized, shoot, I'm going to have to remove the brake booster and MC to get to the firewall bracket. So apparently I'll work on brakes in this project now too. Yay....not. It's hard enough to justify to the wifey the money I've already spent on the truck but to say "hey babe, I need to spend more", man!

Day 2 - started off smooth, considering how much of a pain it was to get the brake booster off. I had to remove it with the bracket, the nuts just would not budge of the booster. Then had to go shopping for tools to get the pitman arm off. That tuned out to be an ordeal. The shop manual doesn't say what size the nut is, I'm not a mechanic, so I really don't know nut and bolt sizes by sight. I had to make 3 trips to the parts store for the right sized socket. Finally got the nut off, and ready to pull the pitman arm after jacking up the front end a bit. The screw on the pitman arm puller they gave me had this rounded edge, so the right size socket wouldn't fit over it. Weird. I tried to use a crescent wrench, to no avail. I'm going to return it and get one that a socket fits for sure. Lesson learned here is to check the tool before taking it home. This was the only real snag to this point in the project, or so I thought.

One more lesson learned, and maybe someone could shed some light here. I floor jacked up one wheel at a time, like it shows in the manual. I used a spot close to the jack point in order to leave room to slide jack stands underneath to the actual jack point, which in the owner's manual says the out most part of each i-beam. I may have placed the floor jack a little too inside on the i-beam. When I lowered the truck, I had some noticeable positive camber. I realize now that I probably should've jacked up the front end as a whole from the cross member, but thought I better just follow the manual. Well, the manual is for quick tire changes, not for extended time. Again, not a mechanic, learning as I go.

I'm pretty sure the i-beams didn't bend, I wasn't that far from the jack point. I'm hoping the i-beam bushings got stuck in a raised position or something simple like that. Thoughts?

Also, I forgot to ask initially. Right now it has the stock pitman arm on it I'm guessing, since the Bendix power steering from manual was easy and required no parts swap. Since I'm switching to a Ford gear, am I going to have to replace the pitman arm? Again, it's a 1970 Ford F250, serial no. G98783. Thank you.

 

It appears I may have answered my own question with a little more research. I will indeed need to switch out the Pitman arm, and according to said research, I'm looking for Pitman arm part number C9TA-3590-E, which will work with the new Ford PS gear I just got shipped from Red Head. But, good luck to me finding it it looks like.

Now, the part I'm super confused about is, am I going to have to replace the linkage as well? I'm hoping I don't have to and the rabbit hole stops at the above mentioned Pitman arm.

Thanks a ton guys.

Matt

 

Had a similar problem with my 69. What mine did was pretty well lock up turning left. Turned out to be the low pressure hose sucking air in. Pretty sure it was the original hose. Was Not leaking.....hmmmm.

 

I don't think you'll have to change the steering linkage. I looked up the drag link. It's shown as 65/71 before serial #M00,001 F100/250 4X2 all being the same part number.

 

Thanks again JEFFFAFA. I read that as well after further digging.

I had some luck on my side in the last couple of days. The pitman arm came off, no problem. Weird though, the first part of the serial number is rubbed off, it's serial number is ***2-3590-BA, which I think is the one that starts with a D, which isn't supposed fit the Bendix steering gear it had in it. From digging, that pitman arm fits late '71 and above linkage and the Ford gear. According to the pictures and descriptions from the Fordification site, my linkage is early model, I had the late model pitman arm connected to the Bendix gear, and the pitman arm isn't angle toward the end that fits on the linkage, it's straight on mine. Just weirdness. The awesomest thing ever though, on a whim I called Red Head and explained that I can't find the right pitman, c9ta-3590-e i believe, anywhere. The guy that answered the phone asked the owner/mamager, he said he has it. He knew exactly the one I was looking for. I asked to make sure the stamped serial number match the -E, he confirmed he knew exactly which one, and he'd mail it to me. Bam!

Had some super good lucky yesterday. I drove an hour and half to a auto salvage yard that had a '70 F250 Ranger XLT. It was risk vs reward type of drive. My guess was it had power steering, and that it had the Ford model. Sure enough it did, and it still had the power steering firewall mounting bracket, and the steering shaft. $30 for both, would've paid $200 at that point, I was so psyched.

Anyway, all is almost ready for replacement and testing at this point. I'm just waiting for the rest of the parts which will be here today. This stuff is so fun, when things are going right of course. It's all about strikes and gutter I'm sure, take the good with the bad. The last couple of days were definitely strikes.

Take care all.

Edit: That should've been ***A-3590-BA, which I'm assuming is D2TA-3590-BA.

 

Good to hear that it's going smooth. I'll be doing about the same thing this spring/summer.

 

Congrats Buddy. Enjoy the ride.

 

Thanks a ton Gary. Good luck to you on your project. And, thanks for that JEFFFAFA.

Project update: I have all the parts in/ordered now for the project since adding brake hoses and pads, brake booster and a new master cylinder, and I've added new Rancho front gas shocks to the project. I've begun rebuilding somewhat. I put together the steering column, and put in the firewall mounting bracket. I'm going to be getting down to the nitty gritty starting tomorrow. I took a day off work to make some headway. Researching king pin replacement, I've decided to drop the entire front suspension and take the i-beams and spindles to a machine shop if the king pins are too hard to get out, which I'm expecting they will. I don't have the tools or money to buy new tools for that one if need be. I was, however, able to rent a ball joint press, so replacing the axle pivot bushing shouldn't be all that hard. I'll let you guys know if I run into a snag. Everything seems somewhat self-explanatory.

Again, I'll include a link to an album once I get done. Take care.

Matt

 

Hello all,

First off, I changed my username to something a little more meaningful to me, but I am the OP. I'd like to add closure, a summary if you will, to this thread, and hopefully some helpful info for anyone that may be interested in tackling the same project, and that isn't a professional, such as myself. I'll try to keep it as short as possible. And, I know I promised pics, but I don't have any that will really help. I followed the pics from the fordification.com article.

I finally finished the steering project, which turned into a mostly front end project basically. It started off as a simple (not so simple) replacement of the leaky Bendix PS box in my 70 F-250 CS, which technically was the wrong PS gear for that model year truck., ended up still not so difficult, but very much time consuming. Here's what I did:

* Replaced the Bendix box with a Ford box from Red Head Steering Gears - in order to get to the PS gear and firewall mounting bracket, the best thing for me to do was to remove the brake booster and master cylinder. They were old and rusted anyway. The only problem I encountered here really was, I twisted the brake line near the fitting trying to get it out. It was rusted on. On installation, I cut that part out, put a new fitting on to fit the different sized front brake resevoir port, which is the back part of the MC (apparently the one the PO had on it was a front drum brake MC, mine had front discs) and reflared the line. Bench bled the MC and bled the brakes. All was good.

* Replaced the steering shaft and firewall mounting bracket - went to a junkyard that happened to have a 71 F250 with Ford PS; it had the PS firewall mounting bracket, which is actually the reason I went to the auto salvage place. While I was there, took the steering shaft. Both need to be replaced in order to fit the angle and length of the Ford PS box. Both items are downright impossible to find online. Good luck with those. There is a nice tutorial at fordification.com on how to adjust your current set up to accomodate the Ford PS gear.

* Took a stab at replacing the crumbling axle pivot bushings - ran into quite the snag here. It turns out, a normal ball joint press will not get these things out. They are oval. The ball joint press is round. It ends up smashing the metal sleeve of the bushing against the ibeam. I was referred to an "old-timer" shop in town that not only knew what to do with these (he said the best way is to air chisel them out). Scoreed with this guy, had also had the old Ford tool to fix the camber (the ibeam basically has to be bent).

* Put in new front Rancho shocks - nothing was wrong with the ride. I figued why not replace them since I had the axle dropped to attempt to take out the ibeam bushings. The radius arm bushings were in good shape, as well as the king pins and bushings. I was extrememly glad the king pin bushings were good, I wasn't looking forward to those, but did find a local machinist that would've done them for me for a very fair price if I took the ibeams out for him, which I was prepared to do, but thankfully didn't have to.

* The Pitman arm was the most confusing part - long and short of it. It had the late '70 and on Pitman arm connected to a Bendix box which was connected to early model (before late '70) steering linkage, again according to the fordification articles. I ended up using the the same Pitman arm on the new gear, with the same linkage, and it worked just fine.

Everything tested pretty good. I had 0 left over parts or hardware. I patted myself on the back (again, I'm not a mechanic). I drove it to work on Monday, all was well, drove it home....long story short...the front left brake locked up on me. First reaction was unpatting myself, next was to get it towed to a shop. It turned out it wasn't my fault so much. The upper piston of the caliper had frozon due to rust and dirt build up. The mechanic said it was bound to happen. They were old and rusty. He put in new calipers and pads in for me, along with the ibeam bushings and alignment. I've been driving for the past couple of days to work and back. It has all been worth it. It drives really nice now, and more importantly, no more leaks.

Thanks to those that have chimed in for your help and tips. I really appreciate it. Take care all.

Matt

 

Most likely you could just have opened the caliper bleeder releasing the line pressure.
Then drive it carefully home!

Orich