That is an excellent idea, Ray!

 

Ok, quick update on the pitman arm fitting.
Both Mid Fifty and CPP tell me that the pitman arm does not have to go all the way onto the gearbox shaft.
CPP said that it was not designed to go all the way on and as long as the nut is at least flush to the shaft end or a few threads showing, all is good.

So there you have it.
If you can't get it all, you just have to be happy with what you have.

 

I’d like to pick up this thread again. I’ve got all the parts from summit racing and started to install the power steering today. I’ve already installed the servo pump, the new pulley, the new steering box and pitman arm. Now I came up with a problem. I had to shorten the steering column and the steering shaft since the new steering box plus the rag joint is longer than the stock box. So far so good, everything done as written in the instructions from cpp. But how in the world can I fix the steering column at the lower end? The column is now only fixed at the upper mount in the cab what seems to be insufficient. The instructions says to reinstall the lower mount but that won’t work, since there is no mount like the one on the stock steering box where the column was slid over the upper end of the box, fixed with a clamp. How did you guys solve that?

 

I made a mount from a shaft collar, welded washers on to each side and screwed it to the floor....works great, nice and secure.

 

Thanks! I thought of something similar. I think I’ll build a mount that I can fix to the two screws from the shift linkage and the firewall.

 

I was going to revive this thread and give a final update but I wasn't quite ready yet.....again. To answer your question on the lower column mount, Mid Fifty recommended getting The column floor mount PN:4661-A17B. I got his floor mount and it works pretty good. Easy to install and makes the column secure at the floor. I used four self tapping screws through the floor. The hardest part is the screw that secures the two halves together and also fitting the mount around the column with a rubber sleeve between the mount and the column. I got the rubber sleeve separate with one for the upper column mount. My old ones were dry and crumbling. They needed to be replaced anyway. I also got two 2755-RB: Steering Column Shaft Centering Bushings, Rubber Style. One for the bottom of the shaft and one for the top of the shaft. The top one didn't want to work for me but the bottom one did after I shaved down the outer rubber a little bit to fit inside the column tube and filed the shaft a little bit to fit inside the bushing. (The inside of the bushing was a fuzz smaller than 3/4" and my steering shaft was a fuzz larger than 3/4". I didn't want to mess up the inside of the bushing so I took the shaft down a fuzz or so.

Now for the rest of the story:
After I got the steering unit completed I decided to take the truck to get a front end alignment because it still wanted to wander around the road while driving straight. With recommendations from the great minds on this forum about wedges and what wedge degree would be needed, I checked around the area to find a shop that knew about our straight axles, wedges for the caster angle, bending the axle for the camber and such. I finally found a great shop about 50 minutes from my house that works on trucks and RVs with straight axles and was very knowledgeable and in fact has a 63 ford truck with a straight axle. So, I left the truck with them for the day. They drove the truck to see how it handled, then put it on the lift. As it turned out they had to grease both king pins as they were pretty dry. Next they checked the toe-in and found out it was set at 5/8" toe-out. Reset the toe-in to specs. They said the camber was ok as is so no adjustment. Caster was at +2 1/2 degree. He said he could add some additional degree but didn't feel there was much advantage at his time. Now here comes the bad news....... When you are coming out of a turn, if everything is set correctly and working as it should, The wheels should steer back to center and get you going straight again pretty much by themselves. Well mine did not do that after making the adjustment. You had to steer it back to straight. He tried to adjust the worm gear in the box but that had no affect. He said that with the truck on the lift and the engine off he could not move the wheels right or left by hand and with the engine on it was very hard to move them. He concluded there was something wrong inside my new power steering box. The truck steered like it should with power steering except for not returning to straight.

I called Mid Fifty and left a message for Diane about how my power steering was acting. A few days later she called me and said I needed a replacement steering box and would get one into the mail that same day. They had just received a new shipment that very day. Earlier this week I received the new box and a return mailing slip to get the first one back to them. Mid Fifty really does stand behind their parts and gets replacements out in a timely fashion. So now I am in the process of finishing the reinstall of the gearbox and all that is left is connecting the hydraulic hoses, filling and bleeding the system. I probably will get it done tomorrow since we don't go anywhere where there are humans around. (Oh....except if we have to go on the hunt for some toilet paper!) What are this people doing buying up all the toilet paper and paper towels? You would think it was made of gold!!!!!

One more comment about the first installation: I am using the power steering pump that came on my 1998 Ford Explorer 5.0L engine. The pump sets near the top of the engine so the pressure line connects higher than it would if the pump is near the bottom side of the engine. Because of this pump location, the pressure line that came in the kit was a few inches too short. I had to get one made up that was longer and with a 45 degree fitting at the gear box end and the 90 degree fitting at the pump end. All is good now.

When I finish and test drive the truck I will report back.

 

@rpaxton939 thanks that helps a lot! I found all the parts you mentioned and ordered them from midfifty. I hope they will ship them fast despite the corona crisis.

 

Rico56: When you get the floor mount, you can remove the two side round head screws and you will see inside there is a small set screw that is used to squeeze the two halves together to tighten the mount around the outer column.
You will need the rubber sleeve between the mount and the column to take up that small space. The column doesn't have to be real tight in the floor mount. The upper mount will be tight and keep the column from rotating. The lower
one pretty much is to stabilize the column at the floor. The rubber bushing works pretty slick once you get it on the shaft and into the outer column. I put a little white grease on the shaft inside the bushing.


When you get it all together and driving down the road, make sure you check to see if the truck returns back to straight without you steering it back. I will let you know what mine does with this new steering box installed. I don't want to
do it a third time, they are heavy and I don't have much room to get it in. I had to disconnect my exhaust pipe from the header to get enough space to lift the box up and twist it into position. It would have been much easier the first time
if I had done this before I put in the engine and then not have to do it again the second time.

 

Thanks for the advices! I hope my box will work as it should do. I don’t look forward to replace that box... I had to remove the exhaust pipe and the oil filter from the engine to get that heavy piece of a box in place. I’ll use the time until I get the parts for cleaning and painting the whole steering column...

 

Hi all
I am in the UK and have just got the CPP5356PSK-OC power steering kit from summit . Now this is going on my 51 F1 so I know I got to make a few adjustments but my problem is I cant work out the spline size on the box and I need to get an universal joint to fit
Anyone help me out ?

Will

 

If this is your box, from the CPP website it says the box has a 3/4-30 input shaft. It's a common shaft size. You just need to know what the shaft is you're connecting to on the column end so you can get the correct u-joint.
https://www.classicperform.com/Serie...eringBoxes.htm