[BVR421]

Anyone ever swap a manual box in in place of a PS box? This is on friends race only TA. original PS box is a handful without a pump, he's getting tired of armstronging it at 120mph and wants to know the most reasonable and cheapest way to get a manual steering box on the car. Not ready to do rack & pinion, its still stock frame clip.
Do I remember someone used a S-10 box? What is a likely interchange for 77? We were guessing a factory manual box for a firebird might be hard to find or expensive? Anyone want to swap steering boxes? (8-)
thanks for any ideas

[russ467]

Do a search on the board. There is several that tells you EXACTLY what will work and how to do it.

[formulabird428]

S-10 box will work fine. Go to a junkyard, and pick up an early 90's late 80's S-box. On mine, I just reused the pittman arm, left the stock Firebird steering shaft. No issues, very easy to turn.

[DScruggs]

Major confusion about the steering shaft. It is NOT a straight swap no matter what anyone tells you

If you have a 1978-1981 F Body you can use your shaft. BUT if you have a 1970-77 F-body you need to use the UPPER half of the 1970-77 shaft and the LOWER half of a 1978-1981 shaft

[Brian Baker]

1985 through (I think) 1992 S-10 box is a direct bolt in. Keep the pitman arm off the power steering box however, as the S-10 pitman arm may not mount to the center link on the car. At least this was my experience with my 79 T/A.

[BDHABT]

Contact Desert Valley auto,or Hidden valley auto.They`re both in AZ.They may have what your friend needs.

[77TA]

How much of an ET advantage is going Manual vs keeping the PS system ?
Just curious as I see allot of drag race guys doing it ?

[Brian Baker]

Knocks a good 25-30 lbs. off the front end of the car.

[Skip Fix]

Is the box that much smaller? I can't imagine the pump and reservoir being over 10-12lbs.

[77TA]

20-30 lbs interesting.... Funny, A friend of mine coverted his and did not say he lost any weight on his GTO,but come to think of it he also put Aluminum heads, and a Fiber glass hood on the car and the last weight he posted was as heavy or maybe a few lbs heavier than it was back when it had PS, Iron heads and steel hood... LOL....

I wonder if you loose an hp turning the PS pump ? I remember rseeing a LS1 thing in a magazine where they bypassed the pump and picked up nearly .2 in the 1/4.... That seemed kinda shocking.. I have been tempted to try it just to see.

[Brian Baker]

Pump, reservoir, lines, fluid, brackets...it adds up.

[Skip Fix]

Suprising how much all the AC stuff adds up even without removing the evap also. 75lbs!

[Sirrotica]

An old stockcar trick you could do without even changing the box, just cut off the steel pressure line and leave enough so that you can run a piece of 3/8 neoprene line from the pressure side of the box and loop it to the return side of the box, so that the fluid just recirculates from one side of the box to the other . Just need to fill the line with fluid and then clamp it to return side. Standard boxes are hard to locate for 61 Catalinas so we adopted this way to convert the power box to standard operation . Pretty easy and Lo Buck .

[Brian Baker]

Originally Posted by Sirrotica

An old stockcar trick you could do without even changing the box, just cut off the steel pressure line and leave enough so that you can run a piece of 3/8 neoprene line from the pressure side of the box and loop it to the return side of the box, so that the fluid just recirculates from one side of the box to the other . Just need to fill the line with fluid and then clamp it to return side. Standard boxes are hard to locate for 61 Catalinas so we adopted this way to convert the power box to standard operation . Pretty easy and Lo Buck .

And still harder to steer than a manual box.

[David Holmberg]

I did the "loop" trick on a 74 Camaro back in the 70's, it was a PITA.
I have a manual box on the TA now and it's 400% better. JMHO.

On the LS1's they normally do the belt trick, dropping the AC and the PS.

[69Goat1]

Originally Posted by 77TA_2

20-30 lbs interesting.... Funny, A friend of mine coverted his and did not say he lost any weight on his GTO,but come to think of it he also put Aluminum heads, and a Fiber glass hood on the car and the last weight he posted was as heavy or maybe a few lbs heavier than it was back when it had PS, Iron heads and steel hood... LOL....

I wonder if you loose an hp turning the PS pump ? I remember rseeing a LS1 thing in a magazine where they bypassed the pump and picked up nearly .2 in the 1/4.... That seemed kinda shocking.. I have been tempted to try it just to see.

Lets see - I still have my same Power Steering box but have the hose looped - steers very well. I added a Glasstech 2" rise GTO hood (If anyone has ever had one they will understand) and lost 7 lbs from my stock steel hood but I added a 1" rear sway bar and added back about 25 lbs - so all I do is just move weight around...

[bobzdar]

I just went to advance auto and got an early '70's f-body manual steering box and picked up a new pitman arm off of ebay. Direct swap with the proper arm, and they are available repro. Total cost was about $270 (190 for the box, 80 for the arm I think).

Here's a link to the arm:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/70-71...QQcmdZViewItem

[Skip Fix]

So are there different ratios for these manual boxes?
Spline count for the S-10 I'm sure Borgeson has a needle bearing coupler.

[ejw]

don't know if this helps, but a buddy and i went to salvage yard and asked for two s-10 manual boxes for our drag cars. i have a 1970 firebird and he had a 1980 malibu. they both bolted in fine. i used my pitman arm and i bought a new rag joint, only because my old one fell apart. bought stock joint for my year from ames, or performance years. had in car for two years, no probs, car 11.72 e.t.
i think the boxes are getting harder to find though. esp in an area like mine with a bunch of drag strips and circle tracks.