77oldsprostreet

I have a 1977 Olds Cutlass with power steering and I want to covert to manual steering , can this be done .I know it involves getting a manual gearbox , but I heard the pitman arm needs to be changed out to, but can;t find a manual pitman arm for 77 Cutlass, any help would be greatly appreciated

J-(Chicago)

I had to make a pitman arm, either do that, or live with the drag link being 1/2" out of level.



It's creepy either way. There is a guy in canada that did this conversion as well over on Realoldspower.com, but he never got back to me as to how he worked the problem out.

jaunty75

Why did you have to make one? Was manual steering not available on '77 Cutlasses?

J-(Chicago)

I have never seen manual steering on any metric Oldsmobile.
Some Chev S-10's had it, but that's about it.

leadfoot067

just find a 64- 72 a body,cutlass,chevelle,lemans,gto,skylark alot of the early ones had manual steering and that box should bolt up. you may also need the early rag joint as i think the shafts is a different size on the early boxes..

J-(Chicago)

It will bolt up, but the pitman arm will be 1/2" out of level. The rag joints are different as you pointed out.

Power steering pitman arms and manual pitman arms have totally different splines.

leep

why?