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I use a little piece of rope cause it even grips a slippery wood wheel. I keep it 90* or tangent to the rope point. Anything past 5mph I got pretty consistent readings. Obviously 5 was safer. I moved the wheel as slow as I could, the readings went up when I moved it faster. I even usually even got the same reading at rest. (The above 9# reading is with the car off, and at rest, just to show the meter).
But the manual car will be different. My expectation with a manual would be you would be that in addition to the moving measurement, we would also need a second at-rest reading, and it would be much higher. Move the wheel as slow as possible, an inch at a time. I would expect the tires to flex during the at-rest reading and the reading to keep going up until they slip, and then what # it takes to keep them moving. (That steep increase never happened with the PS cars.) The high reading when the tires slip would be the important one. My BB manual took 2 hands to turn the wheel at rest, so I hope you work out! LOL
I'm on the other side of the planet. But have a perfectly working power steering car. As you know, absolutely everything is rebuilt with top quality parts. Original control valve back in the car as the reman one was horrific. Rebuilt steering box to tie rod ends. Factory wheels. 4.5 degrees caster.
I should have no trouble getting the readings with the car in the garage this weekend, dry roads for a moving test could be an issue. I'll keep you posted.
I think my car is excellent for your data as everything is as new under my car. And not full of junk parts.
I had tried one of those reproduction control valves. All I can say about that is no wonder people hate the factory PS in these cars if they have replacement parts like this!
My power assisted steering works as it should.
And my castor is a bit more than factory, Leigh helped me out with some slotted upper A arm shafts awhile back. I checked my alignment sheet from about 2 months ago. 4.2 and 4.5 degees. I could probably shoot for more. But really happy with the way the car tracks and handling.
Leigh.... As you may know, I power my Borgeson with a Volvo Electric power steering pump. Although, at this time, I keep mine at a fixed output, they are adjustable in real time. If you want to collaborate on testing one of these in your car, varying the output, I'd supply the controls to vary the pump output. Hypothetically, you could also vary the output using various inputs, like MPH or G forces. For example while decelerating, you could increase the output etc. LMK
Good info. Interesting on the Viper I felt that the steering feel was perfect.
Yes I tried to come up with a couple of cars people could relate to.
My race car was also up in that range, and I also thought it was perfect.
That is my goal for the C3.
I need to find a newer Z06 and try one of those. It's probably up there in that 4-5 range as well.
Anyone volunteer?
Doubletrouble
Thanks for the offer, but I am not interesting in taking it that far.
The electric or electric pump systems have the capability of being computer controlled, which gives an amazing variety of options, and can vary psi almost at will. Inputs for speed, yaw rate, psi, steering angle, G-force, etc. can all be used. Some of the new cars have 6-12 modes. Cool stuff, but too much programming & electronics for me in my old classic!
Leigh.... As you may know, I power my Borgeson with a Volvo Electric power steering pump. Although, at this time, I keep mine at a fixed output, they are adjustable in real time. If you want to collaborate on testing one of these in your car, varying the output, I'd supply the controls to vary the pump output. Hypothetically, you could also vary the output using various inputs, like MPH or G forces. For example while decelerating, you could increase the output etc. LMK
Do you have a lead on the pump? I found several alternatives to the Volvo pump, but I didn't buy anything.
This might be a year or two off, as my manual steering is doing just fine. But I'd be happy to experiment with my 80 as part of her pending engine swap.
Do you have a lead on the pump? I found several alternatives to the Volvo pump, but I didn't buy anything.
This might be a year or two off, as my manual steering is doing just fine. But I'd be happy to experiment with my 80 as part of her pending engine swap.
That's really weird. I'm sure I had a list of models and years that had this kind of pump in my thread, but I can't find that list anywhere.
Borgeson takes old steering boxes and rebuilds them, and puts a kit together to fit old muscle cars. It's a great service.
In some cases they are upgrading from older style saginaw boxes to newer 600/700 style boxes.
That's a big improvement alone.
In our case they take an old Jeep box and weld a bracket on it to make it fit our C3s.
The kit is a great service and it includes everything you need to convert.
Just converting from the old "two finger" boxes to the newer Delphi 600 style gives a much better feel by itself.
The Delphi box has the same control valve inside that the rack-n-pinions setups do.
It is in "our" Borgeson boxes and the main reason it feels so much better.
What I am doing here is taking it to the next level.
And blueprinting the box for even better performance.
It is easy to rebuild a box.
There are only a couple of places who can blueprint one:
Our Gary Ramadai, Tom Lee Steering, PSC, Turn One etc.
That level is typically done only for competition.
I have spoken to them all, and only Turn One is willing to do this on a "converted" C3 Borgeson box.
I had Tom Lee blueprint my Saginaw box to Nascar level specs 30 years ago and it was just amazing!
That is what I am trying to recreate here with Turn One and the Delphi 600 box that Borgeson sells us.
You can read thru GTR1999s threads on what it takes to blueprint one of our manual recirclulating boxes.
It involves things like special machining, and custom fit diameter recirc *****, etc. etc.
That's what it takes to get all the slop out and make the box tight and smooth.
If you want an amazing manual gear box, Gary is the only guy I know of who you should talk to.
The condition of the worm shaft is critical here, and I would bet how Gary deals with these worn 50 year old worm shafts is part of his "secret sauce". It certainly has to be more complicated that just re-assembling it with worn parts.
These other guys also tool up from scratch different diameter torsion bars for the control valve assembly which a PS box has.
A standard box rebuild gets new bearings, grease and seals.
That's pretty much it.
Hopefully the gears get inspected for wear, but they are certainly not machining anything, or doing select-fit assembly.
I am hopefully taking this Borgeson conversion Delphi 600 box and pushing it up to a competition-ready performance level.
This is more like re-engineering than rebuilding.
Stay tuned.
Here are a couple pics: This is an internal diagram of our 1972 C3 manual box (basically) from my GM overhaul manual. There are two ball bearings and two brass bushings used inside. These wear and cause a lot of slop. Especially after the grease dries out after 40 yrs. The recirculating ***** (are like loose BBs) typically fit a little loose into that section of the gear. The worm shaft ball bearings get tighter or looser with shaft pre-load and/or wear. The shaft itself is the ball bearing "seat" on one side so it is very possible to wear/groove/ruin the worm shaft. When the shaft itself wears you can not adjust the pre-load well because it will have tight and loose spots as you rotate the wheel. The two brass bushings just get looser with wear. This style box gets severely "loose" as it wears.
Second Pic: This is the Delphi 600 box:
This is the valve/piston section of the Delphi 600 box used in a C3 Borgeson conversion. First the box uses four modern one piece torrington roller needle bearings. They do not require and are not nearly as sensitive to pre-load adjustments or wear, especially vs the old bushings. So the box has a lot less slop and a lot less wear points. The large control valve assembly (2) contains the recirculating ***** which fit much tighter than the old saginaw style. The arrow points to where the torsion bar just pokes out that controls the steering feel. This control valve must be dissasembled to change this torsion bar. The GM Delphi maintenance manual it says the control valves are not to be dissasembled and can not be serviced, no parts are available. So PSC and Turn One are brave for diving into these control valves. This part of the control valve is the same as what is used on the (later) rack-n-pinion units.
Here is a large and small diameter torsion bar: You can even see the valve on the bottom it is twisting. This goes inside the part on the right.
The Torsion Bar is "pinned" to the steering shaft on one end, and to the control valve (in pic above) on the other. Here is a really good diagram that shows how when you twist the steering shaft, there is ZERO mechanical connection to the worm shaft. The twisting of the torsion bar is THE ONLY FORCE YOU FEEL between your hands on the steering shaft, and the worm shaft which is directly connected to the wheels. However hard it is to twist this shaft is the direct mechanical resistance that you "feel". Any force stronger than this is handled by the hydraulic pressure. (If you twist it enough, or PS fails, and it bottoms out, and then there is direct connection, for safety purposes.)
This control valve on a 600 box connects directly to the worm gear, on a rack-n-pinion it connects directly to the pinion gear. There is really very little difference between the two, unlike the old school Saginaw boxes.
Last edited by leigh1322; Apr 7, 2024 at 10:31 AM.
Quote: Borgeson takes old steering boxes and rebuilds them, and puts a kit together to fit old muscle cars. It's a great service. In some cases they are upgrading from older style saginaw boxes to newer 600/700 style boxes. That's a big improvement alone. In our case they take an old Jeep box and weld a bracket on it to make it fit our C3s. The kit is a great service and it includes everything you need to convert. Just converting from the old "two finger" boxes to the newer Delphi 600 style gives a much better feel by itself. The Delphi box has the same control valve inside that the rack-n-pinions setups do.
Unquote:
I am confused. When I order a Borgeson kit now, what do I get ? An old style Jeep box or a box with the new control valve ( Delphi 600 ) ?
The jeep box that they use for a core is a newer style Delphi 600 box.
It is not the old Saginaw box.
There are several improvements to the Delphi box vs the old one.
Both the Jeep and the C3 have a very long center vertical main shaft, which is why that one works for our cars.
Two C3 forum members tested their cars, one Manual Steering (MS), and one Power Steering (PS).
Surprise! The PS and the MS C3 had almost the same turning force at speed! (4.2-4.5# at speed)
The Borgeson may be in roughly the same range. (We'll know more next weekend).
However the readings on a non-moving or still car vary tremendously.
The PS car only goes up slightly (5.8#) but the MS car when parked goes past 30-40#!
My goal with my race-box mod is to take it up say 30% higher than a standard Borgeson box or C3 MS/PS box, to around 5.8# at speed.
Now we do have some caveats on these tests. Your results may vary. Both members had their steering arms set to the fast ratio, and both have greatly increased caster over stock. (like 4.5* vs 2.5*) and 255 tires. 4-Vettes mentioned when he cranked his caster up the steering feedback increased very noticeably. Too bad we didn't measure it back then.
I would expect a Manual steer car with slow ratio steering arms and 2.5* caster to steer much easier, with much less force than 4.2#. It could easily be in the low 3s?
