Electric power steering
 

Has anybody tried installing one of these systems on there car? They use them out of Prius's.
A friend of mine put one in his 69 AMX and seems to work very well.

What would the advantage be? Prius has more electrical-system capacity than you can shake a stick at. Our vehicles don't, as designed. Yeah, all that can be upgraded/updated...but what's the point? Nothing wrong with a plain ol' ordinary PS pump. The real issue is inside the steering gear. GM used too-slow gear ratios, and too-limp torsion bars in almost all the older vehicles. Fixing those two things makes a night-and-day difference in how the car steers.

The kits have been out there for years. I helped the neighbor install one on his 57 T-bird several years ago because he didn't want the cumbersome and bulky and often leaky factory setup on the car. Worked okay, he's been happy.

A lot of your ATV's have utilized it for years as well. Our Polaris Razor has it.

Me personally, I don't mind manual steering as long as the alignment is correct with the right amount of caster and you have a correct box. But when I've added power steering to our own cars (actually just one needed it) I just go with the factory setup.

A friend of mine put one on his AMX. He's happy with it. I have 63 Lemans, they come with Ford style power steering and I don't want to put that on. Electric seems the way to no pump, belts, pulleys fluids. Pluses are increased hp an milage.

I dont blame ya. Quite a few GM's use that ford style PS that I'm not a fan of either.

Elec-PS sounds Interesting. Since i gave up on Hydro-Boost (U-pull-it, stored it, got rid of it), there is fear that the Elec-PS may sit around for tossing. I suppose the tri-fecta would include an electric waterpump.

GM PMD 12S Alt +PS are a solution set, not a problem set. Particularly with redundant water pump cooling belts. :ranger: HIS

It's important to note that you still end up with a box with the conversions. You're simply changing the assist from hydraulic to electric.

Most of the kits I've seen use the Ford EPAS and you need to section it in to the column before the box.

That being the case, if you're trying to fix the feel or slop of having the box, this conversion does little to change that. You need a properly built box as well. Given the costs involved, you'd be ahead by having Lee update your box and grab one of their rebuilt pumps spec'd for your setup at the same time.

Not in my case. I'm going to convert to manual rack and pinion with the Prius electric steering.
No belts no pumps no extra brackets.

How much have you researched the rack? It's your car and money, but in general racks, especially in A-Body cars tend to cause more issues than they solve. Unless the car is sitting on an aftermarket frame designed around a rack, you sacrifice suspension travel and turning radius, while making the bump steer issues in the suspension worse, just for better on-center feel.

If the car is only being used for drag racing with mild on-road cruising, that's typically fine and the weight reduction is certainly beneficial. If the car actually needs to be able to turn though, you're almost always better off with a quality box on a stock frame A or F body.

ABSOLUTELY.

Rack 'n' pinion conversion is nuts, when you can get proper steering feel with the stock-style box once the gear ratio and torsion bar have been upgraded.

Or just drop a box from a Jeep Grand Cherokee into that A-body. Need a different rag joint, and potentially different hoses, or hose adapters to suit the o-ring style seals on the Jeep box.

Not an a body, 63 Lemans.

You're still going to run in to the same basic problems. The packaging is as such that the rack ends up typically being forward of the steering arms and either above or below the lower control arm pickup points.

Here's the underbody of a 63. Pay close attention to the relationship of the inner tie rods and drag link to the lower control arm mounts. Then also notice where the steering box is, in relation to the pitman arm and it's pickup with the drag link.

https://photos.classiccars.com/cc-te...pest-thumb.jpg

If you decide to go with a rack, there's going to be some fabrication here. What I would do, is cut out the forward ovoid portion of the cross-member and box that in. That would allow the rack to be mounted so that it is inline with the steering arm. You would then need to size the rack properly so that its tie rod pickups at the rack are located in the same position that the inner-tie rods pickup the drag link. If you can achieve that, then you just need the proper length tie rods for each side and you should attain nominally the same geometry as the factory steering system.

What you will likely run into is that the needed length of the rack is fairly short, which limits steering angle and turning radius. You may run into packaging issues with the column as well, depending on if anything gets in the way of the steering shaft you'll have to build. Although I suppose it's possible, the rack out of a Prius is probably not the correct part as much as it's simply easy to acquire. I would instead be looking at circle track suppliers who can build a manual rack to the specifications needed.

79 to 93 Mustang rack is a direct bolt on other than fabricating mounting brackets to crossmember. Tie rods even have same taper.

Another member has done this and this is what it looks like fab up.