[71Sport]

I want to change from power assist to manual steering. I would like to know the whole story on this swap. What will I need? What do I actually remove?
PY offers a manual box in their catalog, and also a quick ratio box. Is the quck ratio still manual?
The flaming river version is a vega set up, what are the pros and cons in using that set up ... (other than $$$$)
Continuing a long question .. what about rack and pinion?

HELP!!!!!

[71Sport]

I want to change from power assist to manual steering. I would like to know the whole story on this swap. What will I need? What do I actually remove?
PY offers a manual box in their catalog, and also a quick ratio box. Is the quck ratio still manual?
The flaming river version is a vega set up, what are the pros and cons in using that set up ... (other than $$$$)
Continuing a long question .. what about rack and pinion?

HELP!!!!!

[Todd]

This is a very simple swap.

The easiest way is to locate a 64-72 A-body manual box AND you will need the manual box pitman arm (the pitman arm on the power box is diff and will not work). You can also use the 67-69 F-body steering boxes, if you use the a-body pitman arm. (there are probably other GM cars that can donate the steering box as GM used the same basic box for about everything for many years).

To "complete" the swap, you will need to locate some single grove pulleys and a non-power steering alternator bracket & belt, but you could just use your existing pulleys/bracket if you wanted to.

I believe the Chevy Vega (and Monza, etc) use the same basic box as the 64-72 A-bodies, but with slightly better ratio. (someone can correct me on that on if I'm wrong).

Rack & pinion would require the most work/expense and would require welding and fabrication. Falls under "anything is possible with enough time, money, skill a welder and a grinder." I doubt there would be any negligible bennefits from a swap of this sort.

Point to Ponder:

Have you ever driven a A-body with manual steering? Having owned both, I can assure that slow speed turning and any type of parking will require a fair amount of arm work. A while back, I thought it would be "cool" to have manual steering in my 65 GTO, so I swapped out the power set-up. After tooling around for a year or so, I decided that I really needed forearms like Popeye if I wanted to keep driving the manual box. Parking just flat out sucked. I wound up putting the power set-up back on. Just something to think about.