View Full Version : Manual steering box conversion?


runnin350
Apr 13th, 04, 08:01 AM
My car has power steering but its not hooked up. Its not too hard to drive and I want to save the horsepower. The only time I run into a problem is parallel parking, backing up slowly... Is there a manual box I can put in?

davidpozzi
Apr 13th, 04, 10:47 AM
Man, you must have some ARMS! :eek:
Seriously, any gm car box should fit. the pitman shaft is smaller on manual boxes so you need a new pitman arm for a Camaro. The steering coupler spline is smaller on the manual box so get a new coupler.
I have a steering page linked to my suspension page below with part numbers.
David

BB69
Apr 13th, 04, 10:52 AM
I have a manual box from my 69 with a brand new Moog pitman arm I would be willing to give you for a very low price. However, with the reduced effort, you will also find that steering the car takes more time. What I mean is that trying to go around corners quickly is nearly impossible because it takes so many turns. I am changing mine because of this. To me, it was almost dangerous. I had to slow down for every turn so I could saw at the wheel. Anyway, shoot me an email if you're interested. I will be in San Diego Memorial Day week, and could bring it out there to ship to save some money. Of course, you probably won't have a hard time finding manual boxes for sale.

Ken

novaderrik
Apr 13th, 04, 11:45 PM
if you get a long pitman arm, with short arms on the spindle, that would speed up the steering a bit. not that i can imagine driving a close ratio manual setup for any period of time, but since you have been using a power box with no power, i guess it couldn't be any worse than that...

jimfulco
Apr 14th, 04, 12:00 AM
It's not bad at all if you start young :D . I drove my '72 Nova with short steering arms & long pitman arm (from the GM TransAm parts catalog) for almost 30 years before I converted it to power steering just to get better steering response. Never had shoulder problems until AFTER the conversion.