[oldred]

Bought another 65 Mustang!

This thing has had the front suspension radically modified with incompatible parts. It has Granada spindles and disc brakes which is good but it has what appears to be a Maverick steering linkage which is not good, this required the steering box (also Maverick, to eliminate the long steering shaft the guy said) to be spaced 1/2" from the frame mounting point to get the pitman arm located in the original position. This will probably work ok since the idler arm and pitman arm are both at the proper angle and in proper relation to each other-here is the problem. The center link seems to be the right overall length but the inner tie rods are about 2" too long, not surprisingly bumpsteer is horrible because of this. Both of my other Mustangs now have R&P steering and the worn out orginal parts were scrapped so I don't have anything to compare with but from memory it looks like the Mustang power steering valve is the same as the Granada/Maverick but the book gives a different part no. It looks like the proper Mustang center link will (maybe? ) bolt up to the Maverick steering valve but I don't know what the difference is and I was wondering if anyone knows if this will work, to use the Mustang center link and outer tie rods with a Granada/Maverick steering valve.

[KULTULZ]

I would like to know the answer to this also. You have'nt an early MUST P/S drag link laying around?

[oldred]

No I threw the dang thing away seems I am up to my ears in junk that I "might need someday" but never have any use for, that is until I throw it away.

[66GMC]

Hmmm.

My 68 Torino was drum brakes and manual steering, which I converted to disc brakes and that same Bendix (shudder) style control valve and hydraulic cylinder style power steering.




The spindles, rotors, and steering linkage were all from a 70/71 Torino (IIRC) and were too wide to fit. I ordered tie-rod ends to fit by stud size and length.

The original manual steering gear was used --and it was what ... 9 turns lock-to-lock ? OK ... I'm exaggerating, but it was awful!

As far as control valves go ... they were ALL junk!
I seem to recall that there were only a couple of different ones, and that the only difference was in the hose fitting sizes and styles. Other than that, all of the internal parts (repair kit) were the same.

BTW ... IMHO ... IF you insist on keeping the Bendix system at all ... don't waste your time and money trying to overhaul one of those POS control valves ... just go buy a reman one. Those things will leak in places that you never even dreamed of ... so buying a reman one makes it someone else's problem (the remanufacturer's).

The bottom line to all of this is:
If I ever buy another old Ford with that style of PS ... the very first thing I would do is to remove it, saw it up into very small pieces in order to ensure that it never bothered anyone ... ever again ... and convert the car to Rack & Pinion!

[oldred]

Originally Posted by 66GMC

... and convert the car to Rack & Pinion!

That's what I did to the other two but I am out almost $4000 for steering kits already. I started out with the idea of a DIY R&P but a buddy of mine bought a Randalls Rack set-up and it worked so good, well I just thought that was the way to go. Since I bought this car I am selling one of the others and I doubt I will recover the cost of that set-up which IMO can be duplicated for a fraction of what they cost so I may just go that route. This system does not leak (yet) and the only problem is the mounting holes in the center link are spaced for the longer tie rods which like I said causes HORRIBLE bumpsteer! I have a complete Taurus R&P set-up from the first project that I did not use since I went with the other set-up but I may try that again if the geometry works out ok. It looks as if bumpsteer with the Taurus parts may be a problem and I sure would like to find some info on doing this but apparently it is not very popular even though it has been done.