Soon after the clutch cylinder rebuild crap, I circled back around to the power steering upgrade. I think I mentioned that I sourced a Saginaw box out of an Astro Van, meaning the Pitman arm faces forward instead of backwards. I wanted to go this route as I’d *heard* you could get it to fit behind the radiator and prevent the need to drill through the front frame cross member. My concern with the “normal” Saginaw conversion is mostly aesthetic – I’ve never liked the way FJ40’s or 55’s look with the box hanging out between the bumper and the front of the body…. Yet my concern is also mechanical – if I can avoid hogging into the cross member and reduce the length of steering shaft then why the hell not? There’s a pig owner here on MUD that said he/she has done it successfully, so I went on faith.
The box is tight but it'll fit. However there simply isn’t room to route the steering shaft correctly unless I a) angle the input shaft up or b) plan to route the shaft damn-near straight through the engine mount. Angling the input shaft up means I’d end up with a very funky swing on my Pitman arm. Check it out:
So I’m going for option b) and will modify the engine mount. Thankfully, I can leave the mount in-place and reinforce it from the top, since I just need a little half-circle carved out of the underside. I’d have zero confidence in maintaining proper placement if I actually had to re-position the mount versus just reinforcing. Here is Option B:
... and one from above, showing that it's snug but do-able:
The galvanized conduit is my way of mocking up where the shaft will go. I plan to use a Flaming River (or similar) Saginaw-to-D Shaft joint, a section of D-shaft through a bearing, another D-to-D joint, then a final D-to-Stock Joint at the existing steering shaft. Lots of words… I’ll post pics as it develops.
As far as the pump itself, these early 2F engines don’t have many unused/unnecessary mounting points. After doing some research I bought a mounting bracket from Georg at Valley Hybrids that will come off the driver’s side front engine mount (near the block), away from anything I’m hacking on. I test fit the pump and all looks good. Well, almost. It looks like the middle of the pump’s pulley will smash on the fan blades. I need to figure that out.
Now… I’m not a great welder. EDIT: I’m barely a welder at all. I’ll be leaning on some expertise from fellow local gearheads to help. I toyed with the idea of trying to weld in the Saginaw box adapter plates and my engine-mount reinforcement without pulling the engine out of the way. But some mental alarms went off and I thought back to all the projects I made WAY more difficult by being afraid to move s*** out of the way (my first valve adjustment on my FJ62 is a great example, fighting with the spaghetti bowl of air/vacuum lines while trying to remove and reinstall the valve cover). So I drained the engine and unhooked everything and am prepared to pull it out of the way. I’ll probably use the time with the engine out to clean up the engine bay, removing unnecessary holes and brackets, perhaps spray on some firewall insulation, that sort of thing. It’s a good move.
With the engine out, my plan is to “sleeve” the frame for reinforcement purposes, similar to what others have done. I’ll probably fab up my own mounting plate considering this setup is somewhat unique vs. buying an off the shelf one from Advanced Adapters or Cruiser Outfitters. After all, it’s just a metal plate with some holes drilled and standoff spacers.
, as there were a few times when things got squirrelly and I almost dumped the tranny and xfer case off the floor jacks. It sure appears that every possible point of leakage is, indeed, leaking. They're filthy!
