Hello -

I have an original 69 RS and am in the process of rebuilding the front suspension. The car has what appears to be factory power steering. I have completely disassembled the front suspension, i.e. upper and lower control arms, springs, bushings, ball joints, etc and have all my parts except the pitman arm. I removed the pitman arm today and noticed it was part #: 3953219. The arm looked as if it was never removed. I looked up this part number and it said it was a pitman arm for a manual gear box. It is 5.25" long. The question is that it appeared to be factory installed on a power gear box. As for another clue the center link diameter is 1.125". The original idler arm appears 5.25" long.

Long story short - which pitman arm should I get as a replacement? Any reason a manual pitman arm was on a power unit? Any drawbacks with this combo?

Any help would be appreciated as I want to reassemble without the possibility of any steering bind.

Thank you for your help in advance.

HG

Check David Pozzi's site for details on pitman arms. http://www.pozziracing.com
As I understand it, Chevy juggled pitman arm and steering arm lengths to give different steering ratios. A longer pitman arm would speed up the steering. I believe the arm you have is the shortest (slowest) but am not certain. Regardless, non of the available "stock length" arms would bind.