Classic Mustangs List Archive

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Mail From: Lev Lvovsky (email redacted)

-- [ From: Lev Lvovsky * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --

Yup, it's me again

Good news, the car that I want to get the kit's rack off of was just about
as popular as the Ford Escort in the 80's. I don't know what "line-code"
they were, but they fall into the category of the chevy Cavalier, and Buick
Skylark (not to mention pontiacs up through the '90's).

Very funky rack. A friend and I braved the weather and went to the yard
looking for these mystery things. Looking at a lot of the cars there, they
were either regular racks, or boxes. Crap, not a good thing. We came upon
a lot of cars with no steering systems in sight. Not that they'd been taken
or anything, they were like new, but we couldn't find any steering linkages.
On the fourth on of these, my friend stayed behind, and called me back when
he'd stumbled upon something goofy.
Turns out that racks are mounted on the mid-firewall, and their arms go
_through_ the shock towers. They connect to the top-most part of the
spindle, and were obscured by the wheels of the cars. I stood there for a
second marvelling at the goofiness (fangleage?), and wondering whether the
rod positions offset the inherent bumpsteer characteristics. Then, the next
task came up...get the measurments, and find both PS and MS types. Good
news for you racy types for the PS unit, it's 3 turns lock to lock. Yup,
only three! You might be thinking that the travel is small. Nope on that
too. 6.0" of travel! Now, I might be overreacting or something, but the
early pinto racks which everyone touts for their quick ratios is 3.75 turns.

We went searching some more, and marvelled at the sheer numbers of these
cars in the JY. Kept searching and searching for a manual, and the last
cars that we came upon finally had it.

[rant]

they just don't build 'em like they used to. The manuals required that the
steering wheel be unlocked. At a JY, they're obcviously not. After picking
at the steering column with a tire iron (didn't bring tools 'cept for a
Leatherman and tape measure), I was about to give up. I decided to use some
brawn, and let my brain rest. My friend and I grabbed onto the wheel, and
turned as hard as possible. CLICK POP!!! The wheel turned. It seems that
there's a simple spring loaded bullet-shaped thing that rides on a sprocket
connected to the steering wheel. It didn't take long to break the cheesy
thing. Thieves should find this no problem.

anyways, we measured the travel on the manual. 6.0" of travel and 3.75
turns lock to lock (the same as the pinto). It's funny that these ratios
are on semi-economy cars, they should make for some taut steering (or jumpy)
. (I suck at ASCII)



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You're looking at the view at the firewall of the thing. There's not much
too it. As opposed to the rods coming out the sides, they're connected to
the middle by way of bolts. The carats are the rubber scrunchy parts - the
whole center section moves side to side. the thing is tiny from side to
side, which helps with packaging I suppose. Since it's connected to the
firewall, there's not too much distance to the steering column. Hopefully
they use large enough input shafts. I got a brochure from Borgeson (nice
documentation, but still expensive), and they don't recommend anything 5/8"
and smaller.

I left there rather happy. I got a look at the price of one of 'em, as I'll
prolly get one from there as a mock-up piece. $27 and $5 for a core. A
CORE??? So I'm bringing in something even junkier? whatever.

I called up the local parts house, and asked them the price. $98.99 for the
PS!!! Can you say cheap!!!! The Omni comes to $200 with everything. This
is a lifetime warranty piece BTW. I think I might go to a *hevy parts
counter, and ask if they could look up all of the cars that these things
went into -- hey, just think of it as an undercover job for the betterment
of Fords .

I did some math, and measurements, and it seems that with the current '66
setup, assuming that it's proper (within +/-1" to perfect bumpsteer, the
shafts coming out of the rack would only have to be approx 8", which is
small enough not to worry too much about component fatigue (especially for
3/4" sizes). It's even smaller for the 67+ stangs, which have a 15"
centerlink. Yup, there were _two_ there. I'm guessing that they were hot
off of the incoming truck, 'cus they only had 75% of the parts taken off.
I'm not quite sure what Terry Buch had in mind for this thing, but I might
beat 'em to the punch. Jeff Speegle, would you care to comment on the
likelyhood of Mustangs Plus selling this thing?

so, to recap

the cars that we saw them on were '82-'85 Chevy Cavaliers and the like (only
'cus this is all that was there -- I'm sure there were many more medels).

Manual - ~6" lock to lock, 3.75 turns
Power Steering ~6" lock to lock, 3.0 turns (!!!).

I also called the parts place to find out about another car with these racks
....'90 Grand Am - $144 manual and power.

if anyone has any questions/comments, I'll be glad to write-back (after I
get out of the studying surrounding me!).

-lev
--
|URL: www.smartlink.net/~levl289/ = Lev Lvovsky
|FTP: ftp.smartlink.net/pub/users/lev
|Most cherished possesion: '66 Ford Mustang (modified)
|"There is no race with a franchise on misery"--MR. KABC AM 790
|Q:"What do you think about American culture?"
|A:"I think it's a good idea."