Custom Steering racks, or custom steering ideas?

Tacoma747

Tacoma747

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
Winston-Salem
Ok, well the issue I am having is on the 36' Ford schoolbus I am building for my sister. The guy we got it from had converted the frontend to an 84' chevy C30 frontend, he did a pretty good job on it in my opinion except for one flaw: he used a Mustang II steering rack...

I am worried about the Mustang II rack because this bus will be HEAVY (gonna guess around 11K-15K??), plus, the Mustang rack won't turn the wheels as far as they will go, which would make the turning radius much wider than what it could be.

I have looked at a rack off a Chevy 1500, as well as one off a 06' Dodge 3500. Both were way too wide to fit (frontend has been narrowed to keep the tires in the fenders). I am going to pull a steering box I have off a 2001 2wd Dodge 3500 and see if I can make it fit, but I really don't think I will have the room for the size of the box, plus the 'swing' of a pitman arm.

Anyone know of somewhere to get a custom 'heavy duty' steering rack? I've done some searching without much luck.

Thanks!
 
Some of the freightliner semi trucks we have came with a power rack but I think it is junk and there are no parts to fix it when it starts to leak. We have to get a complete new unit to replace it with. Does the newer f150 have a power rack?

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Brandon, most of the sandrail racks are not power steering, the 'billet devil sr' is not power in the sense you would think, it just has an ear on the bottom for a hydraulic ram. Plus, it wouldn't have enough steering travel. I may try and pull the steering box off the Dodge truck tomorrow and see if there is any way it could be made to fit.

I thought of maybe a steering box behind the front suspension and convert it to a push/pull type steering, but that would be alot of extra work. Fitting a steering box farther back on the frame would be tough anyways, so that probably is not a feasible option.

Sam, I am not sure about the new F-150's, any reason you are suggesting the F-150 rack? Even the Chevy 1500 rack I looked at was pretty wide, I'm not so sure I could make one fit....
 
Sprinters ar rack n pinion steering.

One thing to consider is how te tie rods follow the arc of suspension movement, if they don't swing in the same arc up and down as the control arms, you will get some wicked bump steer and funky handeling.

The length of the rack center will be pretty important to maintain some symmetry

May be by the mustang rack was used

A third gen 4runner, Tundra and Sequia have steering racks as well
 
Just thinking a different manufacturer might set it up a little different. A toyota rack may be something to look at. T100 may have been a little bigger than the one in a tocoma or 4 runner but it has been a while since I worked on one of them.

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