I am new here. I have a 69 cougar and want to make it steer better. I am wanting info from those who have it. My steering is as good as it gets with the factory set up. My opinion is this set up was ok for the time but was not very good. I am also considering a borgasen steering box. How do you like either of these set ups ?
Autorestomod on YouTube has alot of videos on how to do it the factory way.
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On our 67 , we used a cavilere(sp) non sport rack, with a low res fomoco pump, unisteer brackets , modified for a big block, moved left as far as i could go due to plumbing, and a custom center link to center up the whole mess. Lost a little turning radius, but no r&p dartiness
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I’ve got it the Unisteer R&P in my 1969. I installed it with a complete swap from OEM suspension to Street or Track’s tubular UCA/LCA, adjustable strut rods, Bilstein coil overs, big brakes and big wheels and tires. It’s probably my favorite modification right up there with the 5 speed. Ive had issues though-poor tech support, leaking rack after about 2 years, bracket cutouts for camber adjustments were too small. All fixed with additional money and time.
My car had ancient, complex, leaky, sloppy steering and worn out suspension. I chose to do the R&P not rebuild the stock stuff or do the Borgeson box. I’m happy with the changes.
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I have a Flaming River R&P on my ‘67. Won’t be able to report on how good it is until spring. It is a bolt up.
All the necessary mechanical work will be done by the end of next week, & test fire the following week. Then it will be coming home to a place it’s never been before, and then returning to the shop in the spring for final adjustments
Ron
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Thanks for replying. So far those who have the upgraded borgason box have had good results . The R&P sounds good as well but want to hear from more people who have it.
I bought a ‘68 XR-7G that had power rack and pinion. I believe it was Total Control Products… not sure. Anyway the modifications to the car were extensive and reduced it’s value greatly. So I returned it to stock. All of the work was done to a very high standard both on the conversion to R&P and the return to stock. The bottom line is that the only significant difference between the two systems is that the R&P had a much larger turning circle. Going down the road and generally driving the car there was essentially no meaningful difference. There is nothing inherently bad about recirculating ball steering boxes. rack and pinion is not bad but it has a tendency to wear faster in the center of the rack. For this reason BMW stuck with recirculating ball designs for the bigger heavier cars with V8 engines for many years.
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Thank you for your response and your experience. Typically the recirculating ball design is stronger than R&P and why it’s used in heavy applications. The down side of recirculating ball design is they tend to have more play (slack) and shows up as having to turn the steering wheel more to correct or turn the vehicle . The design of the power steering system on my car has a hydraulic slave cylinder and control valve after the recirculating ball gear box to provide the power assist. This design has built in play where the control valve hooks to the drag link. This cause excess play at the steering wheel and is what I want to fix
I was quite surprised to find it was so similar. However every part of the front suspension and steering was effectively new and had no wear issues. Let us know what you think when you get it done.
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I tend to favor driving R&P cars and trucks. As I think about this , my 1946 Chevy truck , 2021 Ram 1500, Subaru crosstrek and Mercedes convertible are all R&P. Never thought about that before. Everything on the Front suspension is new or rebuilt and drives fine other than I don’t care for play in the steering. I am thinking the borgason recirculating ball power steering box will take care of the built in play and I will be happy with it. It’s a big expense to make a change and not turn out any better than it is now.
Question, Did the steering box get rebuilt? If so, did all 62 ball bearings get replaced? Ive rebuilt quite a few over the years. If the ball bearings were not replaced this can be an issue. The rebuilt box would have been cleaned & the shaft bearings (4) replaced, but almost no one replaces the ball bearings.
Once the box is rebuilt & torque setting made, the car is driven for a short time & the loose (play) is back. Imagine the old ball bearing are like footballs due to 50+ years of wear. After a short time the football line up, thus the play is back…
Also the torque specs are higher with “Competition Handling”…
ball bearings all align
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The car is a 40,200 mile car. The work was done before I got the car. I can see most everything was replaced and was told so by the guy I bought the car from. I can tell that the control valve has been apart cleaned and put back together. That tells me it was rebuilt and it does works as it should. The steering box does not have any play in it . The only play is where the pitman arm connects to the control valve. I have watched multiple videos on rebuilding the control valve and every video says this has to move some for the control valve to function properly. So by design this is normal. As nears as I can tell, my car drives as good as the day it drove off the lot when it was new. However by today’s standards,that wasn’t very good.
The great thing about this hobby is you get to try things and then change them. Give it a try and see how you like it. You can always change it back or try something else.
I’m just curious why I haven’t experienced the on center looseness you describe. With the engine not running absolutely there is play but with the system pressurized I don’t experience that. I may just not be feeling it.
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It could be you have got use to the way it drives and don’t notice it. I know the more I drive the car the less I notice the play in the steering. When I was young I had cars the really drove bad and I didn’t pay any attention to it. Now that I am much older and have had newer cars for many years, the play really stands out.. I found a short video on YouTube that points the play out in the ballstud at the control valve. I will post it if I can figure that out. Also ,thanks for the replies it helps me think things through to solve issues.
(https://youtu.be/2ANJQ6xBx7A?si=390I5C15to6BMI2-)
In this video it shows the free play in the ball stud ,on the control valve that I am noticing. This shows up on my stock steering wheel in 2 to 3 inches of movement back and forth of free play.
Unfortunately he did not go on to explain that is not how that works when the engine is running. Here is a much better explanation of the system
https://youtu.be/69idxXfXJv4?si=P9pY5ZkJUT62y8g6
I have watched that video a few times last week. He doesn’t say that there is no built in play. He said that that one has a little to much. I maybe missing something ,I don’t see any way for that to tighten up after the engine is running. There is not pressurize fluid that supplies that joint to hydraulically tighten up that joint that I can see.if there was that joint would leak around the dust cover because it doesn’t have the ability to seal fluid pressure and would leak. There is a spring against the ball stud seat that holds it against the ball stud and a sleave that the ball stud sits in that slides in’s the control valve tube that is free to slide back and forth as well. If the sleave cannot slide then the ball stud retainer held by the spring will still move by compressing the spring . At least that’s how I understand it. If it is supposed to tighten up while running ,How? What am I missing?
The side to side movement of the stud moves the spool. The hydraulic pressure causes the cylinder to react. It takes very little movement to actuate the cylinder it’s really easy to see it work when you have it on a lift and running. Now
If the parts are worn out it will be sloppy.
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Maybe the best way to understand the function is that the hydraulic ram steers the car the steering box just feeds a signal via the stud to the spool valve. The stud more or less just provides a mechanical link if the hydraulic system fails.
None of this means you have to like it or not change it. Half the fun of old cars is trying stuff.
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After I posted my last post yesterday,it hit me that the slave cylinder is after the control valve and helps take pressure off the ball stud. Your reply helps reinforce that and makes it more understandable. Thanks for all the replies. After I figured that out yesterday,I inspected the rag joint and steering box again for play . I keep turning the input shaft on the steering box back and forth while watching the pitman arm. At one point I thought I saw a little play but couldn’t get it to repete. I decided to tighten the steering box anyway. I went a little at a time and tried it by hand,then tightened it some more. I probably done that 4 times. I got a steering box on a 79 ford truck to tight years ago ,and it wouldn’t return to center. I was able to get some play out of the steering and is much better to drive. It had close to 3 inches of free play in the steering wheel and I would guess over half of that is gone. I am also getting use to how it drives and that helps as well. I am not a fan of this system and i suppose many aren’t as well or borgason wouldn’t have went to the trouble of making updated steering box,or others doing R&P. I don’t have any leaks and it is drivable. I will probably change to the borgason box sometime in the near future. Thanks for the help.