GT350Clone

Who makes rack & pinion steering setups for vintage cars? What works? what fits? How much $$$?

Mberglo

I heard Flaming River makes a nice simple bolt-in kit. :shock:

LMan

..and their customer service is second to none!
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COLORADO MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES

Mberglo

Fastforward Fastback takes turns with an 85 Tempo R&P. I wonder what it took?

jpony645

Keep that up and we'll have to petition for some [sarcasm] [/sarcasm] tags.

Jay

You're really going below the belt on this one. As of today I have given FR 48 hours to fully credit me on my returned box of parts or I will not only contact the BBB, but also file a claim on my CC.

To answer your question there are NO widely available kits on the market today that I would consider properly designed for the early Mustangs. The two biggest factors in what I would consider properly designed are the mainetanance (or improvement) of turning radius and also no increase in bumpsteer.

Someone will name some of the kits on the market today, but none of them fully support my requirements.

Who by the way sells the rebuilt and blueprinted original boxes?

Jay

A latemodel frontend conversion via Fatman Fabricators ... the Mac strut haters are right on your tail for that one.

BLAKE

Agreed. There seem to be alot of band-aid type fixes that technically put R&P steering into a classic, but none of them come without major drawbacks.

For this reason, I freshly rebuilt my stock steering last year with the plan that sometime far in the future, someone will develop a rack and pinion that actually works without creating it's own set of problems.

LMan

Correct. The options available now are too expensive/troublesome for the prices charged. Maybe in the future this will change. My breath is NOT being held.
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Child Avandia

Mberglo

How will the R&P play into bumpsteer? Length of arm? I would think that would be same/similar on any midsized car.

Jay

If you change the length of the steering arms (inner tie rods and outer tierods) and also move their pivot points then you will change toe-in through suspension travel.

As for potential promising kits... from what I am reading on www.vikingmustang.com I really like his approach so far:

http://www.vikingmustang.com/NewR&P/003.jpg **** NOTE THE FORUM SOFTWARE IS TELLING ME: "Sorry, dynamic pages in the [IMG] tags are not allowed"

Notice he is preserving the factory tie rod setup, at the sametime mating it all up to a rack (Saab 900) that steers from the ends (not these crazy cavalier style center steers). Dave at DVS Restorations is also working up his own kit from his heck on earth experience with Flaming River.

Mberglo

That picture looks like the tie rods would be mounted way inboard of the lower arms, creating a different arcpath than the lower arms. Aren't you trying to get the tierod and lower arm to pivot in parallel planes? To do that, I'd think you'd want the tierods to pivot at or near the framerails, and the rack would need to be mounted such that the pivot points are at the same height.

Disclaimer: I'm no suspension expert. Just trying to spur conversation and promote education.

Edit: I found a picture of the stock setup, and it appears the lower arms mount way inboard of the frame rails. So I suppose that rack in the picture might be okay. Here's a picture of a $34,200 showcar, so we know it's correct.

Mberglo

Where's the discussion? C'mon, educate me.

After thinking more, and studying the underside, I suppose the two linkages don't have to pivot at the same point side-to-side, but the lengths of the tierods and the lower arm need to be the same, right? This explains the spindle difference for the Granada changes the length of the tierods, thus creating worse bumpsteer.

Next question. These fancy blue tierod sleeves...how do they help correct bumpsteer? How are they any different than the stock sleeves?

LMan

I think the arms can be different lengths, as long as they are mounted at their respective points on the framerail/centerlink to produce the matched arcs you speak of throughout suspension travel. That's why chassis engineers get the big bucks to design all this. It's also clear that none of these engineers are employed by Flaming River.
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Avandia Class Action Settlement

BLAKE

Speaking of engineers (and the lack of competent engineers when it comes to the Classic Mustang suspension aftermarket), has everyone here seen the now legendary corner-carvers.com thread thrashing the TCP parts? I know corner-carvers has it's own problems and critics, but it also happens to be populated by alot of engineers who very creatively ripped TCP a new one. The thread covers their suspension stuff as well as the rack. I wish I could provide a link, but I don't know how to get the specific url within their frames.

http://www.corner-carvers.com/ and search for TCP "rack pinion" It's the thread with over 400 replies and 12 pages.

jpony645

Just wanted to add something new to this post. I found this while browsing around for info on the IRS swap.

http://www.speeddirect.com/index.aspx?nodeID=75

Which I found from here. http://www.nzmustang.com/Newintoold/newintoold.htm

LMan

good time for a refresh

The SpeedDirect rack listed is the one that Sixto Bernal has been working on for a long time. Finally got it to market, although the markup is enormous :shock:

also, as I posted somewhere a little bit ago, there's at least one person who got Randall'sRack to work with longtube headers...a big sticking point for those of the Flaming River persuasion.
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Laguna Heights Condos Wong Amat

Mberglo

don't like struts? Replace with coilovers.

Jay

There is also another setup in development that I am aware of that has a bumpsteer number in the neighborhood of .01 or some unbelieveable low figure like that. I hear it takes some modifications to the spindles and is not planned to be a "bolt in" modification. Don't wanna steal anyones' thunder so I will leave it at that.

Jay

Mustang Monthly has a write up on the Flaming River setup in the latest issue. They boast how easy it is and brand it a bolt on modification. If you actually read the article they had to have a custom cradle made by Flaming River, they of course do not mention what this service will cost. Adding fuel to the "magazines are crappola fire" they end the article with photos of a Mustang II setup to demostrate how to measure for the steering shaft and joints

And to add even MORE insult to injury they run an article on the Top 50 Restomod (love that term) parts and the FR rack and pinion comes in at 15 ... further evidence they did not really install it

It also appears they have worked a deal with M+ to use the Restomod term by giving them a 4 page "Restomod Corner" section ... when your advertisers start writing your editorials your cred is fleeting.