[Tiddytime]

I recently fitted power steering on my 55 chevy, and always
struggled with the none power it used to have, so I then
decided to shrink the 18" steering wheel down to a 16",
I also did this to my 58 brookwood last year, I cut the outer
ring off keeping as much of the outer plastic whatever material
the cut through the outer mild steel bar and eased it in to 16"s
then marked and cut off excess bar, welded outer together
made a wooden jig to make sure wheel is central or true
cut excess off the two spokes and welded it up,
so not to much reshaping to do, wheel already had some
age related crackes so fixed them to and repainted, horn
ring still fits where it should and to the untrained eye you
wouldn't even notice the difference, aftermarket steering
wheels for these motors are mega expensive with the puchace
plus shipping,p.s. much easier to drive with the lower rashio box
and smaller wheel.

 

[296moon]

What did you use to repair cracks an joints?, also a pic would be nice.........................

 

[Motorama]

you can buy 15inch tri chevy wheels off the shelf, i guess yours owed you a lot less done

:tumbleweed:

 

[Tiddytime]

Hello There 296moon, the material originaly used was probably injected
into the mould,I don't know what it is but I used davids p40, its a mixed
fibre glass that you use the same as you would p38 body filler, you just
mix up what you want to use and put hardner with it, but to repair your
crackes use p40, shamfer out the cracks down to the metal base and
bevel the plastic material back a quarter to half an inch, rub down area
around crack so its keyed and fill with glass fibre you might need to fill
a couple of times,let harden and shape, you will get some pinholes with
the p40 so fill pinholes with p38 filler, hope this info helps, can send picks
of my steering wheel if you private mail me. cheers Richard,

 

[cymrodder]

I would think that a mould could be made up from M D F using a router and a trammel bar, and a couple of sizes of core box cutters ( round bottomed cutters) to accommodate the steering wheel frame and that a casting resin or a reinforced body filler type material could be used. The construction of such a mould would be fairly inexpensive but fairly labour intensive .

 

[69 ford]

Tiddytime, I have recently bought a 1959 Chevy Apache with a manuel steering box, and am looking to upgrade to power rack, the kits I am looking at from the states are around £900.00 that bolt directly to the beam axle, what would you recommend and what did you fit? any help will be much appreciated.

 

[nobody]

Tiddytime, I have recently bought a 1959 Chevy Apache with a manuel steering box, and am looking to upgrade to power rack, the kits I am looking at from the states are around £900.00 that bolt directly to the beam axle, what would you recommend and what did you fit? any help will be much appreciated.

are you looking to bolt it to the beam youreself

 

[69 ford]

Possibly, I'm still exploring the options at the moment, it looks quite straight forward, but I know it never is- so may be giving you a call..

 

[nobody]

its fairly straightforward.

youre steering is behind the axle.

if you use say a rhd ford power rack as they sit in front.flip it over and use behind should make it steer the right way.you will prob need to extend the steering arms off the rack,and mix,n,match ends to fir whatever track rod ends youre going to use.

you will need some sort of sliding joint.one of the big company,s,poss flaming river sell one,or ive used one off a modern car and adapted it to suit.all modern cars somewhere will have a sliding joint.either inside the column or a lower connecting shaft.

doesnt matter how or where you mount the rack,as you wont get any bump steer

 

[Epy]

Go electric, less hassle,no pipes to route.