power steer setup for a v8

[Dano]

cool thanks , that helps heaps

[Rogue Trooper]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but as this subject pops up regularly I thought it would be best to try and keep as much of this information together as possible to make referencing it easier.

As I am about to embark on the power steering modification some questions have popped up around the positioning of the power steering racks. This question is aimed primarily at Bas NZ and SundownerNZ but if anyone else has any relevant information and comments please feel free to chime in.

This is an excerpt from the ‘National Guidelines for the Construction and Modification of Street Rods in Australia’. I have asked Shane to upload the rest of this section of the document regarding steering rack setup to the ‘Technical Documentation’ section in the ‘Downloads’ area.

The document states:

“A rack and pinion set-up is shown (in broken lines) in its normal position for an unaltered
front end. For a Holden front end with its original spindle steering arms, the rack must be
positioned as shown with the pivot points of the rack lining up exactly with the pivot points
of the front suspension at A and B.”

It goes on to say:

“the pivot points on the rack must stay on the lines A’A’ and B’B’ respectively. For
example, if the rack were to be raised 75mm from its normal position, the rack must be
widened so that the pivots remain on the lines A’A’ and B’B’.”




This is a picture of the original Bedford steering rack in my van. The plastic boots make it hard to tell in the picture but the pivot points do roughly sit on the lines A’A’ and B’B’ shown in the above diagram.




This is a picture of the Transit power steering rack that I’ve swiped from the Bedford UK site. Many thanks to them. This picture is great as the boots are removed so you can see what I am getting at. You will notice that the pivot points in this picture do not line up with the lines A’A’ and B’B’ shown in the above diagram. They sit to the inside of these points.




Here is a picture of Garry’s Porsche 928 power steering rack. It’s a little hard to tell from the angle of the picture and the plastic boots however it appears that the pivot points of this rack sit to the outside of lines A’A’ and B’B’ of the diagram above.




Now from everything I have read these setups should be a recipe for ‘bump steer’. My question is have you guys noticed anything like this driving your vans?

[erics8]

Mine uses triumph 2500 rack and power steer, with a modified link, seems to work alright but not the best lock  seems to be in line with the diagram.. Oh and BasNZ that TEX lwb is my beddy yup it is cresta diff..

[Rogue Trooper]

Can't think when the last time was that I saw a Triumph 2500 on the road. Those were a bit narrower than the Bedford I think. Have you had the steering arms lengthened?

[erics8]

around 65mm by the looks of things, yea they are getting pretty thin on the ground..

[Bas NZ]

Transit rack on the Camper, no bump steer, but lock a little short ( Transit Rack - Shortened). Black Beddie, yep bump steer at full lock ( VN Rack - section added) lock a little shorter than the Transit. but I can live with it as you learn to drive with this in mind, but still way better than standard Bedford.

[Bedfordcrazy]

Hey rogue, i think the easiest power steering rack has to be the 97-98 ford transit rack. We installed ours in a day, we had to fabricate a bracket [transit bolts up @ 45deg angle] then the rack bolts to the front of that. We do have to get shorter tierod ends, and the shaft that connects the rack and column is a 99% perfect angle, so we had no trouble connecting the 2. Here are some pics, i still need to get some good pics when everything is cleaned up and fitted up again.

george.

[restoreid]

Hey George what is the shaft from the column to the box from or is it custom made Cheers Reid

[Bas NZ]

Mine is custom made, simple job, but have seen people use bits from other makes and models of cars that have worked well.

[Bedfordcrazy]

Hey reid, mate we have chosen to go with a landcruiser steering column. We cut the spline bit [ 60mm long ] off the collapsable column, my mechanic is getting the spline on one end slightly machined by an engineering firm so that it mates with the transit coupling. But so far the rack has been a breeze. For those planing power steering, i am getting all the numbers, and doing up a master template for the brackets, down to every nut and bolt, i will be selling the templates for $00-00,   Untill we are finished and engineered approved i wont be sending anything out. We found out that we should of done the V6 b4 the rack, as we needed to slightly modify with the plasma cutter. But being we had no info on what was needed, that was the only thing that went wrong, but 10mins work and it bolted on.

george.