power steering to manual conversion
Race Director
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 18,126
Likes: 174
From: WI
Intermediate
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 41
Likes: 0
From: Columbus Ohio
Pretty easy conversion, looks like.
I'm about to do the same.
A little advice, keep all the ps gear in tact and take your time pulling it off.. A lot of people here would love to have it to convert theirs the other way..
Remove Pump, Control Valve and Slave Cylinder.
Steering box and most all linkage are all the same.
Some leave it like this and call it good enough. In my opinion, it could be 'good enough', but that's just not my style.... Needs to be right.. AND it will give you proper feel in the steering wheel.
You should purchase a manual pitman arm and a manual steering relay rod to have it good and correct.
You COULD move the tie rod end into the 'outer hole' on the steering arm. It will give you more leverage to turn, especially when moving slowly.. Im personally keeping my tie rod where it is. Might be a 'little' harder to turn while speeds are low, but leaving it alone will give you faster steering, which I like.
Newer c3's (not sure exactly which years) don't even have that option anyway as there is only one hole anyway.
Hope I helped and gl
I'm about to do the same.
A little advice, keep all the ps gear in tact and take your time pulling it off.. A lot of people here would love to have it to convert theirs the other way..
Remove Pump, Control Valve and Slave Cylinder.
Steering box and most all linkage are all the same.
Some leave it like this and call it good enough. In my opinion, it could be 'good enough', but that's just not my style.... Needs to be right.. AND it will give you proper feel in the steering wheel.
You should purchase a manual pitman arm and a manual steering relay rod to have it good and correct.
You COULD move the tie rod end into the 'outer hole' on the steering arm. It will give you more leverage to turn, especially when moving slowly.. Im personally keeping my tie rod where it is. Might be a 'little' harder to turn while speeds are low, but leaving it alone will give you faster steering, which I like.
Newer c3's (not sure exactly which years) don't even have that option anyway as there is only one hole anyway.
Hope I helped and gl
Team Owner
Joined: Jul 2004
Posts: 40,412
Likes: 792
From: Redondo Beach, California
Converting my manual steering 68 to power steering was one of the best things I've done with the car.
First of all, with manual steering, parking the car was an uncomfortable experience.. The steering wheel was so hard to turn..the 68 had a 16 inch steering wheel...much larger in diameter than your car....you're gong to have much stronger arm action to turn the wheel when parking with your less than 16 inch wheel.. Even with a 16 inch wheel, I would partially lift myself out of the seat just trying to park it with a 16 inch wheel.
For me the killer was parking the car against a curb or concrete parking block. Once the wheel hits the curb or parking block, the steering wheel will make an instantaneous recoil. If you have your thumb underneath a steering wheel spoke, it'll snap hit your thumb with a really painful experience. After getting my fingers painfully snapped by the steering wheel, I couldn't get rid of manual steering fast enough.
First of all, with manual steering, parking the car was an uncomfortable experience.. The steering wheel was so hard to turn..the 68 had a 16 inch steering wheel...much larger in diameter than your car....you're gong to have much stronger arm action to turn the wheel when parking with your less than 16 inch wheel.. Even with a 16 inch wheel, I would partially lift myself out of the seat just trying to park it with a 16 inch wheel.
For me the killer was parking the car against a curb or concrete parking block. Once the wheel hits the curb or parking block, the steering wheel will make an instantaneous recoil. If you have your thumb underneath a steering wheel spoke, it'll snap hit your thumb with a really painful experience. After getting my fingers painfully snapped by the steering wheel, I couldn't get rid of manual steering fast enough.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 2,337
Likes: 14
From: Norfolk VA
My PS system was leaking at the pressure hose fitting on the control valve. When attempting to replace that hose I could not get the line wrench to go completely around the fitting to tighten b/c it would touch the smaller fitting. After going through two bottles of ps fluid and having to have to remove the the smaller fitting in order to get the line wrench to fit, I got frustrated and cut the ps belt off the pump. I drive the car but leaving the power cylinder on does cause some "drift" in steering. The vehicle is harder to steer when driving slow but that's better than then seeing a trail of fluid running from your driveway and/or going down the road and suddenly the steering assist system starts to whine. There too many areas on that system to leak, a poor design in my opinion. I understand that the steering assist (what should be the proper term to call on the C3 corvette) was not meant to steer like a Cadillac. Does anyone know any vendors who sell the non ps relay rod as well as the non ps pitman arm?
Converting to manual steering is one less thing to worry about breaking down.
Converting to manual steering is one less thing to worry about breaking down.
Last edited by Oldguard 7; May 12, 2015 at 01:04 AM.
Intermediate
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 41
Likes: 0
From: Columbus Ohio
you have a few options and vendors
here are a few examples I quickly found
http://www.ecklerscorvette.com/corve...1963-1982.html
http://www.ecklerscorvette.com/corve...1963-1982.html
here are a few examples I quickly found
http://www.ecklerscorvette.com/corve...1963-1982.html
http://www.ecklerscorvette.com/corve...1963-1982.html
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