Steering box interchange???

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mopowers

mopowers

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I recently took a power steer box out of my 68 Dart with intentions of switching to manual steering. When placing the manual steer box in place, I realized the mounting holes in the steering box were smaller (7/16" vs. 1/2" for the 68 Dart). I believe the manual box came out of a 65 Dart.

Have any of you ran into the same problem? Is drilling out the early manual box mounting holes to 1/2" the best fix?

Are there any other differences I should know about before I start drilling out holes? Will the 68 power steer pitman are fit on the early A-body steering box?

Thanks guys!
 
This may explain the looseness in my power steering :)
I think someone put in a later model powersteering box in my 64. when the bolts are even a little bit loose there is a lot of slop in the box because the box moves.
Odd,
 
Every a body I've owned the steering box bolts have been loose. Take them out, clean the bolts and holes with brake cleaner and install with red loctite, I think the bolt torque is 100 ft lbs. I just installed a 64 B body manual gear box large sector on a 70 A body and had to ream the outboard hole slightly to install a 1/2 bolt.
 
mderoy340 said:
Every a body I've owned the steering box bolts have been loose. Take them out, clean the bolts and holes with brake cleaner and install with red loctite, I think the bolt torque is 100 ft lbs. I just installed a 64 B body manual gear box large sector on a 70 A body and had to ream the outboard hole slightly to install a 1/2 bolt.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about the bolts being loose. My post was about the fact that early A bodies manual steering boxes use 7/16" bolts vs the 1/2" ones 67 and later use. I thought they were all the same. My question is- Is there a problem with just slightly enlarging the mounting holes in my early A manual steering box? Is everything else the same between manual steer boxes from early A's and later A's?? Will my 68 pitman arm be usable with an early A steering box? ETC...
 
I haven't seen a early box in person so I can't help on that. But I almost sure that the pitman arm shaft will be a different diameter between power and non power.
 
Thanks for the input guys. It actually looks like both power and non-power boxes use the same pitman arm. So I should be able to use the power pitman arm from the 68 on the 65 manual box. I guess we'll see tonight!
 
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