Posted by Chriscase on Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 21:02:58 :
The power steering sure made my '53 fun to drive!
Just took it for a ride to the parts store, to return some stuff I didn't need. At the first corner, I said to my self "This is fun to drive now!" And that wasn't even in the store parking lot yet!
Needs a bit of fine tuning, for a couple more days, probably. It would be easier to make an engine swap than to do the ps system that way. But I did it MY-y-y way! I moved the box forward slightly, by grinding out the big hole in the frame. Left lots of room between the pitman arm and that rear bolt. I made my own bracket, with the box outward just a bit too much, and had to grind off the end of the box a bit. There's still plenty to hold the snap ring in, and now I'll be able to use a puller on the pitman arm, if ever needed. Stock pitman arm is clocked properly, and clears the bolt heads, and goes lock-to-lock at the axle knuckles. The pump works with a serpentine belt, but I'll have to rebuild the noisy damn junkyard pump. $16 for a kit from Kragen. Manyana. Made an adapter for the gear box end of the hose, out of 5/16 flare fitting. Straightening out the kinks in the junkyard hose made it long enough, for now, and it's a good sample for the custom hose guys- manyana. I modified the jeep column on both ends, to suit the Dodge wheel and a knuckle joint- and guessed wrong on the horn commutator location. I'll need to move it another 1/2". - when I pull the column to make new clamp/mounts, the lower flange is in the way of my size 12's.
But my bad elbows appreciate it already- MRI shows micro tears/chronic triceps tendon prob, and a moderate tear to the epi-condolissa-ricerator tendon. Probably from making my own power steering systems. ;) I told the therapist about the seven surgeries to my hands, the two disc operations to my back, and the old compression fracture, and she said "And you didn't change your lifestyle?" Another woman who don't understand me. See, I have Don Juan complex- I meet a lot of women who don wan nuthin to do with me!
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