Hello all,

I bought a never installed steeroids 63-82 rack and pinion conversion kit from a guy on offer up. The unit was never installed and still had everything sealed. The installation was simple and it went on with no issues. I'mmtrying to connect the power steering pump to the R&P but the hose that came with the kit has an fitting that is not compatible with my PS pump. I've attached pics of both fittings, hoping someone on the forum is familiar and can point me to an adaptor of the appropriate hose. The top pic that has grass background is the original hose that was connected to PS Pump and the lower pic with o ring is the fitting that came with the steeroids kit.

Thanks

Jose

 

This is not the part number I bought. I just wanted to illustrate what is needed.
Jose I feel for you. I had problems with my high pressure side power steering hose. I changed the power steering pressure control valve and the installed a fitting with a 6AN male fitting. I had a hose made but it didn’t fit. It was made too long. I decided to buy Earls Plumbing power steering hose fitting and hose. I will be installing this tomorrow. I hope there will not be any leaks

 

Instructions in case you need them
https://www.speeddirect.com/web/content/710

I dealt with this fella (call direct) he is very helpful.
https://gottashow.com

Good luck with the install.

 

Thank you for all your replies. I replaced the PS pump with the correct one for a 1980 that has o-ring instead of flange and I have no leaks. Now I'm just dealing with the binding on the articularing u-joints. Its been a pain becuase I can get it almost right but not perfect. I still can feel a bump at several points as I rotate the wheel. The difficulty is that I don't feel those bumps with the car is up on the rack and headers remover for easy adjustment. I feel the bumps when the car is back on the ground there is some resistance on the rack. Any suggestions from anyone who has done this would be appreciated.

 

Speeddirect.com/ Call and speak with the tech as they have helped me in the past.

 

I would call Speed Direct as advised, but in my application I did two things to eliminate the "tight" angle on the steering components:

1. I cut some material off from the steering spline. Not enough to eliminate the spline engagement, but some.
2. I shimmed the R&P unit about 1/8 to a 1/4 inch where it connects to the hanging brackets.

For me, these two things took some of the angle out of the U-joints. After I did those things my binding went away. I would only advise that after you've tried everything else. Keep in mind that our C3s have differences in manufacturing and ages. What worked for me, may not necessarily be your solution due to variances in the frame, etc...

KT

 

Thank you for the tips. So when you say you shimmed. You put a shim 1/8 inch shim between black mounting bracket and the gold colored bracket. Didn’t that leave the rack loose on that end?

I did see today that my steering column has a lot of lateral play at the lower bearing so I’m replacing that to see if that movement is impacting the u joints.

 

Definitely check everything you can before "going outside of the box". A problem somewhere else may be causing your binding.

 

Just an update for anyone else doing this upgrade. I did replace the lower steering column bearing but in the end the biggest adjustment came from loosening the four nuts that secure the column inside the cabin. With these loosened the shaft actually moved quite a bit allowing me to reduce angle on the u-joints.

 

 

Did you shim both sides of the rack on all 4 bolts? Did you just use washers?

 

No.
You can't use washers, because as you touched on an earlier post, you have to have a flat surface for the R&P unit to sit against. I shimmed it with a flat piece of aluminum bar stock with two holes drilled in it for the two bolts to pass through.