Saginaw budget steering? (1 Viewer)

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Jan 11, 2007
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gardnerville nevada
So was wondering if anyone has some tips or anything for setting up a budget Saginaw steering, I planed on making the frame bracket and finding a good usable box but what about the shaft and u-joints? Running s small block so the bracket isnt a problem, any info or insight to setup a budget setup would be awesome thanks!
 
Yeah man, budget saginaw steering is entirely possible. I just finished mine a few weeks ago on my 70' FJ40 and I'm into it about $100 believe it or not. I just grabbed everything from my local parts yard, steering box, pump, lines, cooler from a late 80's early 90's chevy full size pickup. You have to do a bit of looking around to find a box that mounts to the inside of the frame and not the outside, also the pitman arm must point towards the rear of the vehicle and not the front. Anyways I got grabbed a different pitman arm off a mid 80's Jeep Grand Cherokee because it has the accommodation for a tie rod end rather than having pressed joint already in the pitman arm, I also used the drag link off the same Jeep. I made my own mounting plates and used the chevy steering box bolts with piston wrist pins cut to the right length to be crush sleeves between the frame. For the steering shaft I actually combined shafts from a toyota pickup and a chevy truck because I wanted the slip joints but I ended up welding them up and just using a rag joint on the box end and a U-joint on the firewall end, then butt welded the shafts together (carefully, to make it straight) and put a sleeve around the butt weld and welded it as well. On my year FJ I had to build a base plate deal on the firewall for a pillow block bearing to bolt/weld to. I built my own power steering pump bracket out of angle iron (carefully to make the belt run straight). Thats a general run down of what I've done, for whats its worth. I probably should make a write up of all of this, but in the meantime I'll at least take some pictures of my setup and post them here.
 
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I have an 86 chevy that I plan on stealing parts from. With that and a few junkyard joints, I shouldn't be into it much more than $150. That flaming river stuff is pricey, stay away.
 
that was the problem i looked in the FAQs and everyone have good info and part numbers but you add it up and your well over 500 bucks. i was going to try and do it under 200 with out spending a bunch of time searching for parts. ever since the cash for clunker deal our local junk yards doubled there prices because they figure they have gold now or something. ill just have to go around with a tool box and start looking.
 
that was the problem i looked in the FAQs and everyone have good info and part numbers but you add it up and your well over 500 bucks. i was going to try and do it under 200 with out spending a bunch of time searching for parts. ever since the cash for clunker deal our local junk yards doubled there prices because they figure they have gold now or something. ill just have to go around with a tool box and start looking.

i have a steering column i pulled from my cruiser, has ujoints that are welded on. if you want i will cut it up and send you the joints for price of shipping. also has a slip shaft on it. PM if interested and we can see if it will work for you.
 
I fabbed my own plates out of $10 worth of 1/4" steel plate spent another $100 buying an entire serpentine belt system with pump and alternator for my SBC. Since I went with a Scout Steering box, I had to switch over to the Ford F250 shock mounts, but they're cheap at $15 each. The hardest decision for me was what to do about the shaft. Lots of good info here: Power Steering Design Basics After reading this and talking to a few people who opinions I respect, I decided to pony up the cash for the new shaft and joints. I spent about $275 on them from Borgeson. I reasoned that I could have pieced one together for probably about $50 after several hours at the pick-n-pull and a few more to make it work, or spend a day working OT and buy new and just bolt it together. It ended up being an easy choice for me. Probably not what you wanted to hear, but it's another way to look at it.
 
Here are the pictures I promised :). I shoved the gear box pretty far into my cross member, that just seemed to work the best for my situation. The pressure line from the box to the pump is also off the same chevy truck, somehow was the right length. Oh and I mounted my cooler on my top radiator cross bar. Good luck
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Yota, I would like to see how you doctored up your cross member to put that much box in there. Do you have more pix?
 
If it's a street driven rig I wouldn't go cheap with the shaft and joints. The shop that did the manual Sag conversion I had on my truck went cheap, it's scary when that s*** starts to fail on the highway.:eek:

The Flaming River stuff isn't free but it's a lot cheaper than the Borgeson stuff.
 
as much as i wanna go cheap i also wanna make it safe as its my wifes rig.i think ill make the plate for the frame and the only thing ill have to really spend some cash on is the shaft and joints. i have a serp belt bracket with all the stuff on it i was thinking about swaping on to the rig but i dont know if it will fit as the rig is running a front saddle mount
 
If it's a street driven rig I wouldn't go cheap with the shaft and joints. The shop that did the manual Sag conversion I had on my truck went cheap, it's scary when that **** starts to fail on the highway.:eek:

The Flaming River stuff isn't free but it's a lot cheaper than the Borgeson stuff.


They were within a few bucks of each other when I priced them both just last week. Either way, I have to agree that it is definitely something you don't want to have fail at 60mph on the freeway.
 

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