What is involved? Is it as simple as removing the pump, hoses, and the cylinder? Can I then just drive around like that until I get my clean-up and repair work done on the system? :smash:

 

There's a little more to it than that, but it's apparently pretty easy. VBP posted a suggestion on the steering conversion in my thread about converting to manual brakes.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zero...ply&id=3272944


[Modified by The Dude, 3:15 PM 6/25/2002]

 

The link is dead...anyone have the info ? I know this is an extreme necro bump...sorry for that

 

look at your other thread
https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-steering.html

 

I had a first gen RX-7 that had manual steering about a 50/50 weight distribution and the car weighed 2500 pounds. The tires were 215's... Autocrossing the car the first event of the season would result in pulled muscles in my chest if I didn't start working out a month or so before the season started. That car had a big steering wheel and relatively slow steering. In slaloms I had to crank 270 degrees of lock in each direction to keep ahead of the car. It has rubbery tires and more modern tires would make it easier, but in order to put up with manual steering in a 3000 plus pound car you're going to have to take most o the caster out and that's going to remove a lot of that self centering that you want. A slower steering gear would help a lot, but that'll also slow down the steering... A friend had a C3 without power steering and in order to autocross the car we put power steering on it and didn't look back. On a road course you could probably get away without it but for autocross and a car weighing 3000 plus pounds the only way you're going to do it is if you're Jack "Arm-Strong"....

Remember too that caster helps negate the effect of kingpin angle and it "jacks" weight to the inside tire when turning at higher steering angles like you see in autocross. While I love the feel of non-assisted steering I don't think it's practical on a car this heavy.

 

???
This thread is 17 years old... It's old enough to have its own driver's license...

 

Might be the record for oldest thread brought back from the dead.

 

Yeah its old, but guess that's no reason not to answer the question. Yes you can simply remove the power portion of the steering system. It works just fine without it. Unlike most vehicles, our corvettes use essentially the same steering box whether the car had power steering or not. When I got my '79 the previous owner had simply taken off the belt and drove it like that for years. The manual steering cars had the tie rods installed into a different hole in the steering knuckle and not all cars had both holes drilled. If you remove the power steering without changing holes, it increases the steering effort, but its still driveable.

 

So I did this "correctly". I don't have a forward set of holes in my steering arms, so every day is arm day. Removing the pump and piston will get you close, but you still need to revert to a manual center link (what I did), or use the Borgeson replacement to eliminate your steering valve. That valve requires power steering fluid pressure, and isn't designed to be run in manual mode for long. I also changed to a manual pitman arm.

I have a GTR1999 rebuilt box ready to go in. There are year differences, but the boxes are otherwise the same for manual and power.

 

different pitman arm also

 

Yup! I should have been more clear. I changed to the (stock) manual center link AND manual pitman arm. The Borgeson adaptor is intended for the power steering pitman arm (with the stock OR Borgeson box). I don't know that it won't work with the opposite mix of parts, but that is, AFAIK, the intended pairing.