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I've been doing some research and looking at other trucks and whatnot, and I'm curious if the Toyota steering box/swap takes up any more space than the stock manual steering box? My flathead has headers, and there's not a lot of room between them and the factory steering box. Just curious if I should also be looking at an exhaust swap, or can anybody confirm if it can be done with headers?
Also, I see there are options where one can attach a power steering rack directly to the solid front axle. Do any of you have this and can you comment on how well it works, or compare it to regular pitman arm power steering?
I've been doing some research and looking at other trucks and whatnot, and I'm curious if the Toyota steering box/swap takes up any more space than the stock manual steering. I see there are options where one can attach a power steering rack directly to the solid front axle. Do any of you have this and can you comment on how well it works, or compare it to regular pitman arm power steering?
I too would be interested in any information bolting a steering rack to the stock front axle.
The Toyota box is slightly larger than the F1 steering box. Petemcl, who did the 4R70W trans swap also put power steering on his flathead. Not too many people have tackled that because of the complexity of making a pump work on a flat motor; lack of brackets, pulleys, etc. Here's a pic from the thread I referenced in your trans swap thread. You might reach out to Pete via PM, I'm sure he would be happy to share his details.
My personal feeling on the r&p kit that attaches to the axle is you're asking parts to work in a way they were never designed to, that it's a jury-rig setup, and I would never have one on anything I drove because I don't agree with the engineering and think it's dangerous at best with a crazy, unstationary slip joint. Others may give you a different story, and as always, your mileage may vary.
Power Steering Pump: The big problem is how to mount the pump. I have other posting with pics showing how I did it with replacing Fan Hub Assembly with a GM type 2 pump and remote reservoir. I used a bottom discharge pump, otherwise you come off the top and back down. If you are using an electric fan, this is the easiest. I am driving fan hub to pump conversion. So far no problems after a few thousand miles.
Power Steering Rack and Pinion: I have the bolt on axle with the slip joint. Same set up (sort of) as GM and Chevy trucks. See Here:
You need about 3 to 4 inches of travel minimum on the collapsible shaft. Some think the original steering is dangerous in a front end collision because steering is forced up into drivers chest. You can check out more on bolt on rack here:
I tried to sell my Fan Hub replacement Ideas for power steering to these guys, since they do not sell a mounting kit for 48-52. But they were not interested, and I could not find a shop interested in making it.
Hard to get photo of pump because it is tucked away and looks somewhat stock.
