Purely for fun, I wanted to try for an electric power steering setup on my cutlass. I ran across the aftermarket electric power steering columns and thought that was a great idea. So to accomplish this, I'd like to rig up my own setup using a manual rack and find a power steering column off of a donor car. To that end, what cars would be good sources to look for a manual rack and pinion? Plenty of powered racks in the salvage yard but not seeing any manual ones. I guess I could convert a power rack to manual... I saw the flaming river setup and it looks very possible to copy the design.

 

Nate, do you want to swap your car to rack and pinion steering or an electric PS pump? I've never heard of folks swapping a rack and pinion setup into their Olds, and I didn't even know electric PS pumps were available. Most of the time folks either swap a Grand Cherokee PS gear into their Cutlass or go to manual steering if they're building something to race. Please give us more specifics, what kind of Cutlass do you have?

 

You need to really understand the geometry of your OEM steering and the new rack. The critical dimension is the location of the INBOARD tie rod ends. While I understand that you want to play around with this, the reality is that if you want to improve steering response on A-body cars, there are many other things you should do first. An improperly done R&P conversion will really mess the car up with bump steer. Taller spindles or ball joints fix the camber curve problems and increasing caster really helps with stability. A quick ratio box with correct torsion bar selection on the servo valve makes a big difference.

 

Hi Olds64, I apologize for not mentioning the obvious! I recently picked up a 1971 Cutlass fastback. The car currently has power steering. My plan is a manual rack and pinion operated by an electric motor. There are at least a couple different ways that electric power steering is being accomplished on newer cars nowadays. There is no hydraulic pump, hoses, or fluid at all anymore. I believe that all cars are going to be going this route in the near future. I noticed the Ford F-150's have the electric motor integrated directly on the rack. Most I've noticed have a manual steering setup with an electric motor on the steering column. All the hybrid cars I've seen have this setup. I was surprised to find out that electric power steering has been on production cars for over 25 years now. There is aftermarket stuff that is designed to be a direct bolt in.

Joe - I follow what you are saying. Check out the Flaming River rack and pinion setup for A-bodies. The rack and pinion has a sort of "center link" attached and parallel to it with the inner tie rod ends attached to the center link in the exact location as stock. My plan will include power disc brakes, tall ball joints, and replacement a-arms as well. I will copy the Flaming River bracket that mounts between the frame using the existing holes where the steering box and idler arm are mounted. The rack and pinion mounts to the bracket. I need to find a rack and pinion that will fit in this location and have enough travel, which leads me to my original question of donor cars that have a manual rack and pinion. I've just started looking around myself, I was also hoping that some of my fellow forum members may have some ideas as well. I hope this gives a little better explanation of the direction I am headed. Flaming River has already worked this out, I would just rather not pay the $3k.

 

Yeah, that's just a GM rack as used on the N-body cars (think FWD Cutlass Calais and Grand Am). A rebuilt rack and pinion for one of those cars is about $75 from RockAuto. The companies that sell the conversions (Flaming River, Unisteer, etc) make the tie bar that replaces the center link. The N-body cars are rear-steer. Depending on where you mount the rack, you obviously need the correct front steer or rear steer rack.

 

Gotcha, a "tie bar". I will be installing this in a front steer setup so it looks like the N bodies won't be good candidates unfortunately. Below is the Flaming River cradle kit to show the cradle and tie bar I will need to make. That will be the easy part. Looks like the inner tie rods are just made from a universal Heim tie rod end with a coupler to a threaded rod. Then I'll need a pair of adjuster sleeves and new outer tie rods and I'm all set!

 

Yeah, I see that now. I was thinking of this style, but apparently these are only used in rear-steer cars - go figure.





WAIT! Found it. Dodge Intrepid. Similar to the N-body rack but front steer AND, it comes in electric power versions! DING! DING! DING!

 

Thanks for looking Joe! I looked up that Dodge intrepid rack and it has a a couple potential hang ups. If I have researched correctly, it looks to still use a hydraulic pump, but an electric one. There is a solenoid on the rack that controls the hydraulic fluid. I'm not sure how the controls would work to operate the pump and solenoid together to get the desired operation. I'm trying to ditch the need for fluid entirely. I do like the tie bar on that design though, it looks designed to operate that way where the Flaming River doesn't look quite as elegant.

 

Yeah, apparently the Intrepid rack is hydraulic with a built in electric motor pump, so it's self contained. I don't know if they ever offered the Intrepid in a manual steering version. I've seen some low-buck R&P conversions where they used a rack like this and welded the original car's center link to a block that then bolted to the rack for adapting to the original inner tie rods.