[zstrange]

hello all...
im new to cruisers but have wanted one forever. heres my story...
i recently bought a 68 fj40 for a pretty good price. its basically stock and complete and in pretty good unmolested shape. i am torn between keeping it totally stock or doing a few upgrades to make it more driveable/capable. not into a restoration.

BUT, the steering is F'in awful. so, i replaced all the tie rod ends and rebuilt the idler(?) arm. still bad, so i removed the steering box (good lord!) and dissassembled and the gears are both bad, big chunks out of the smaller gear and the worm gear is a mess too.
so i am trying to decide whether i want to upgrade to power steering or rebuild/replace the stock box. it is column shift now and id like to keep that if at all possible.
has anyone done any type of power steering swap and kept the column shift?
it currently has 33x12.50s(worn out) and will prolly not be going any larger than that, maybe smaller.
not going to do any heavy wheeling with it, some light duty though.
how bad is a stock manual box if its in good shape? with 32s or 33s?

thanks for any input/opinions

flame away......