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To Upgrade to Power Steering or Not?

janschutz

janschutz

Corn Hauler
My wife really like driving my 68 Mustang Coupe (not a bad thing). BUT she hates the manual steering. I have all the components to upgrade to power steering although it needs to be rebuilt. The biggest hurdle I see is that with the 351W and Headers, I do not see much room for routing the hoses.

FuelPump.JPG


Looks like I will have to relocate the coil and fuel line. I also figure it will cost about 350 to get the parts rebuilt (not by me) and another $150 for other parts.

Would y'all do the conversion or not?

One of my thoughts is when the wife wants me to upgrade something on the Mustang, I should do it. I do not think I could do a power rack for the same cost.
 
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Suggest she buys her own Mustang.....

I would add it if she drives it a lot. I have had two out of 5 with power steering. Wife liked them but will drive the non power ones. She refuses to park at shows with manual steering, afraid she might hit something.
 
I'm slowly getting use to no power steering driving Gertrude. It's not bad when just driving down the road, only thing that is annoying is parking and I'm getting better with it the more I do it. I have hit my elbow a few times on the B&M shifter and it hurt like hell. :amaz Larger steering wheel would help too.

If the wife drives it a lot, and even with practice and gets use to it more and she still hates it.. then I would say upgrade. Or get her a membership to a gym to work out those arm muscles!
 
Hi! on my '67, I was originally going to go with standard steering( I even bought everthing), then decided to go with factory power steering(I even bought everthing again!), the decided to go with rack n pinion(power of course). If I had it to do over again, I would have gone with my first instincts! I think for me, it was something to conquer or when people ask me, "yeah, I installed power rack" maybe expecting a "Wow" response? Who does most of the driving in your case?

In '74(I know it was a while ago), I had a '65 GT0, 4 speed, manual steering, and I don't remember having any problems with steering that larger car, in fact I was great at going around corners and the wheel would just whip right back center! Of course in tight spaces I did require a little more umph to turn the wheel.

Unless you have nothing better to do with your money and time, not to mention the frustrations of the install, go ahead, but I think I'd just keep it simple and leave it alone and/or do like Pete said, get her a mustang too!
and whatever you do do~ will be just fine! :craz
dne'
 
he has a Mustang for her already, I think that there are several votes for Jon to "finish" her Mustang!
 
Well alrighty then! lol this is a no brainer~ yeah, finish her Mustang :10 !

"tarafied1" said:
he has a Mustang for her already, I think that there are several votes for Jon to "finish" her Mustang!
Click to expand...
 
I've seen an install thread on the Borgesen box, and I sure wouldn't want to try it. The owner ended up hacking up quite a bit of the frame rail and inner fender to get the box to fit properly.
 
"tarafied1" said:
he has a Mustang for her already, I think that there are several votes for Jon to "finish" her Mustang!
Click to expand...
I am trying! :craz Realistically, I am a year away from being done. I just looking for a quick solution to a irritant. I guess I will just sell the Power Steering setup and use the funds on her Mustang. That is really less work for me which is a good thing.

Thank y'all
 
Originally I was planning to put PS back into Shag but now I'm very glad I did not. Less clutter in the engine bay. No PS leakage and the road feels much better with manual.
 
I say go for it, especially if you already have all the parts. My 70 is the first classic I've owned with it and so far I think it's worth the money (although I was like you and had all of the parts for the conversion already). If I recall correctly, the ps bracket for the 68 should allow you to keep the fuel line there and the only thing you would have to relocate is the coil (which shouldn't be that big of an issue).
 
"Starfury" said:
I've seen an install thread on the Borgesen box, and I sure wouldn't want to try it. The owner ended up hacking up quite a bit of the frame rail and inner fender to get the box to fit properly.
Click to expand...
If you are talking about a thread over on the VMF that was a one-off situation, if I recall and not at all representative of all the other successful installations I have read about on the same post. I have not seen anything negative about these installations outside of that one (and it seemed odd as in maybe more the installer than the box). I don't have time right now to go back and find the details but scratching this box off your list because of that one person's input would be a mistake.
 
It was over on MustangForums, but it could've been the same person. I recall it interfering with the frame rail quite a bit, along with some other things I can't recall atm. I haven't seen another post about it since.
 
I'm installing the Borgeson PS conversion in my 65, the only problem I've encountered is the ZBar, but I'm working on a mod for that. The steering box fits good but quite bigger than the stock box. The one thing I don't care for is the cheap piece of metal and hose clamp they provide to support the firewall end of the steering column but working a fix for that one.
Ole guy in La
 
"Starfury" said:
I've seen an install thread on the Borgesen box, and I sure wouldn't want to try it. The owner ended up hacking up quite a bit of the frame rail and inner fender to get the box to fit properly.
Click to expand...
If you're referring to the thread over on VMF, I believe that one was on a 69 or later and the guy made a couple errors in judgment or understanding of the correct installation procedures and basically did a hack job installation. I've heard multiple examples of smooth installations of the Borgeson box and only that one "bad" tale. The only "mods" I've seen were minor improvements to the column mod/mount which is typical for a project like that. The more installs that get done the more refinements are developed.
 
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