[KULTULZ]

Originally Posted by laguna

I put a saganaw box in my 55 (from 78 Merc wagon).

I am happy with my "original saganaw" hosed up to a 5.0 with stock ps pump.

Question please...

How much difficulty was there mounting the housing to the frame rail and did you then use an origional M/S drag link and tie rods? Are you using a Saginaw, Eaton, Thompson or CII pump?

[60tbirdrick]

[QUOTE=V8TV]Hello!

We installed a Gearheads system on our 1962 Galaxie, and we must be one of the luckier ones.

V8TV.
Are you happy with the grarbox? Could you live with the wandering and be satisfied? Would you recomend this to other Ford owners?
Why bother with this "UPGRADE" if it doesn't drive any better, or even worse than the original? I haven't driven my T-Bird much at all this summer because of these boneheads.
Being a media company I hope you can honestly answer these questions. maybe you can warn others.

[Bryan59EC]

Just so y'all dont forget I am here.
I have the 605 in my Avatar car.
Not entirely happy with it.
Wanders a bit
But not enough to keep me from driving it around---ha ha

Bryan

[grandpaws 57]

When & were will your followup be? Other rodders should be adware!!!

[grandpaws 57]

It's been a year sence I took Gearheads crusier Products box out and put a rack in.No problems,car drives great.Never got money back,but,I am not alone!!! Got to watch speed now,drives so good.

[59 wagon man]

hello grandpaw just a quick question about your wurthit install did you notice after installing the r & p and hooking up the linkage a little bit of ruffness as the ujoints in the linkage swiveled? i can feel the ujoints as the work around in the sateering wheel and was just curious

[laguna]

Originally Posted by KULTULZ

Question please...

How much difficulty was there mounting the housing to the frame rail and did you then use an origional M/S drag link and tie rods? Are you using a Saginaw, Eaton, Thompson or CII pump?

No problem at all... one hole to drill the other two fit the old ones and box is in the same place... stock 55 from pitman arm out... kept the one that came with the box. Worked great from the first day, tho did rebuild the box.

I never looked at my ps pump so don't know what it is... tried just now but can't tell. It came with the '88 5.0. Feels just right for steering.

Sorry I didn't see your question sooner.

[grandpaws 57]

AS to the gentlemans ouestion- my steering works very smooth. We spent a lot of time getting steering shaft and joint to be in phase/align .I suggest you leave rack disconnected till you get good feel. good luck ps had the wagon up to 80+mph several times, rock solid.

[59 wagon man]

Can You Explain About Phase/align?

[grandpaws 57]

Shaft length,center support brg postion all affect u-joint final postion. We did move center support mount. Play with it,took a while.

[grandpaws 57]

Keeping up on my friend at GEARHEADS CRUSIER PRODUCTS,I SEE THAT MORE PEOPLE ARE READING THREAD AFTER BEIND BURNED.No question that this site leads the way.

[grandpaws 57]

Second season with r/p.Have had ZERO PROBLEMS.Still using GEARHEADS Box to hold open outhouse door!!!

[60tbirdrick]

Originally Posted by grandpaws 57

Second season with r/p.Have had ZERO PROBLEMS.Still using GEARHEADS Box to hold open outhouse door!!!

Thats funny . I haven't figured out what to use mine for yet. Too bad I don't have an outhouse.

[JEM]

I've got a Gearheads kit on my '64 wagon, it hasn't run yet and I'm not expecting to use it. Ever since I got it, and looked at the welds etc. on the box housing, I'd figured I'd have to tear it down and have a look inside and have every weld in the thing crack-tested before I'd use it.

The Wurth rack setup with the J-car rack looks like something I could fabricate myself (not even sure if he's doing them anymore) but after some thought (and playing with J-car setups on my '65 Mustang) I'm looking at a different direction for the wagon.



This is a ZF Servotronic box out of a Cadillac Catera (Opel Omega MV6) - basically the same thing used in E38 ('95-01) BMW 740i/750i and E39 ('00-03) M5 (and some other '97-03 Euro-market 5-series) except for the case shape (the BMWs have a very short output shaft and mounting lugs on the box.) The sector shaft and housing are within 1/4in of the stock Ford Saginaw box, and while there's a lot more bulk on the steering-column side of the box it's pretty much the same as the Ford box where it abuts the frame.

And because of all the Cateras that blow up beyond economic repair from cam-belt tensioner pulley failures, 50-70K-mile examples are dirt-cheap.

It's not in the car with the engine, headers, etc. so there's still questions to be answered; the input housing can be rotated 90 degrees to relocate the Servotronic PWM solenoid cube up instead of sideways if you drill a couple new oil passages in the housing. Making the Servotronic variable assist work might take some juggling; BMWs and I think the Catera integrate the vehicle-speed-to-steering-assist electronics into the body computer, but some other Servotronic-equipped vehicles (lots of Audis) use a relay-package standalone controller.

A little bit of mockup time shows that the rubber boot at the steering-column end of the housing fits - magically - just about at the '64 firewall. It'll be another month or so before I get much further with it.

Like figuring out what to do about the pitman arm...

I wouldn't be surprised to see someone do a Saginaw (Delphi) 600/670 (whatever it is - the one with the 'rack and pinion' solid-input-shaft valving) box conversion, those are getting very common for e.g. the Tri-5 Chevys and they're dimensionally very similar to the ZF box (and the 605, which is nothing special.)

[mikehunter]

I have a 605 gearbox in my 58 chevy wagon --wandering and a hard spot right or left. Not just the 1st partial turn of the steering wheel but on the 2nd turn as well -at first thought it was something rubbing --not --I am almost positive its the gearbox --Purchased it rebuilt --a couple of years ago, and only about 300 miles or so on it --but time has run out to get a refund


[QUOTE=60tbirdrick]

Originally Posted by KULTULZ

grandpaws 57

Listen...

Go to this website... http://www.squarebirds.org/dcforum/DCForumID1/1029.html ... and scroll down until you see a post made by 63tbirdrick.

That post was from me. (Different name, used to have a 63) I am having same issues as grandpaws57. The locking up is pretty bad and dangerous. I doubt its the installation if the two boxes are in different types of cars and having same problems. At first they said that the fluid temperature is getting too hot and causing the tollerances to close up and to add a cooler to the system. I did this and the problem did not go away so i added another cooler and the problem is still there but not as bad. This is basically fixing the symptom and not fixing the problem. Gearheads seems reluctant to respond to these issues for some reason. I am hoping to get this resolved soon as my summer cruzin plans went out the window in a hurry.