Second Wind - a Packard Gasser

[MercuryMac]

Here's my opinion, ZZ, if the draglink is nearly horizontal, the tinie-weinie bumpsteer is very small and easily corrected with the steering wheel. It's only when the draglink is at a big angle that the problems arise.
I've had about 60,000 hrs. driving 'draglink' vehicles, over some rough conditions, with very little fear. And I'm opinionated.
Keep on tinkering, ZZ.

[Couper]

ZZ...your work looks awesome. I worked on my steering components today as well. I may have the same or similar steering box. Mine is the Vega box from Pete & Jakes. Mine also has the 2 lower bolts that go in from the backside.

Do you have any close up pictures of how you made the adapter plate? I will need to fab one as well.

You may have saw in my thread that my input shaft lines right up with my motor mount....ARGG

Thanks!

[zzrodder]

Originally Posted by Couper

ZZ...your work looks awesome. I worked on my steering components today as well. I may have the same or similar steering box. Mine is the Vega box from Pete & Jakes. Mine also has the 2 lower bolts that go in from the backside.

Do you have any close up pictures of how you made the adapter plate? I will need to fab one as well.

You may have saw in my thread that my input shaft lines right up with my motor mount....ARGG

Thanks!

No problem Coup. I welded 2 tabs to the frame to bolt the adaptor plate to it, there is a 1/2" spacer welded between the 2 plates, the one bolted to the box came with it, you can also see the spacers between the plate and the box because the mounting points are inset from the body. One of the lower bolts was right behind the spring mount so that's why I went this route. You could also put sleeves through the frame rail and use long bolts like the factory mounting setup. My steering box is from Pete & Jakes too, they call it a Vega box but it is larger than the original Vega box, which is a good thing as they were actually not so durable. Shown is a generic 'Vega' box I also have, you can see it is much smaller, and the output shaft has a smaller spline too, no identifying marks whatsoever so you can guess where it was made.
I haven't gotten to the motor mount issue yet, but if past experience has taught me anything, it is sure to want to be right where the steering shaft will run....

[Couper]

Thanks ZZ I ended up doing mine today.

I welded the bracket that came with it right t the frame rail. As you may have saw the bugger fell right in the center of my motor mount. I kicked around putting a 1" spacer between the bracket and the frame but decided against it.

I c-notched the motor mount and welded in a cut open piece of 3/16 tubing. Actually the 1.5 tubing ended up not being enough once installed so I had to do it over. Love doing things twice...Arggg

I'm gona post some pics on my build thread...

Thanks for the pictures....appreciate your time.

[zzrodder]

Got the coil over mounts made, still waiting for them to show up so I made a couple peg legs to stand in for them for now. I also got the Panhard bar mounted, tried to keep it as long as possible to minimize deflection. At ride height it will be near level, kinda similar situation to the drag link geometry...

[Couper]

Originally Posted by zzrodder

If I need to lower the drag link, I can always get a dropped pitman arm, I'd rather not have the steering box hanging lower. Need to wait and see when it gets weight on it.

Hard to tell what kind of angle your on. My Pete and Jakes Instruction Sheet said 1/2' - 1" higher on the pitman arm side.

[zzrodder]

Put the engine, tranny and OD together and got it placed pretty much where it will end up. Naturally, the drivers side engine mount is right on top of the steering box Not unexpected, need to put on my thinking cap to create a decent looking work around. The headers are 55-7 Chevy, nobody makes BBC in a Packard headers - may need to modify them but I wont know until I get the body home....

[bob w]

Some builders are good. Some builders are fast. You, my friend, are fast and good..

[Couper]

Looks great ZZ. You do nice work. You knew that dam input shaft was going to fall in the wrong place.... arrrg.

I'm building a bracket / brace for my pan hard...I'm going to post a picture on my thread before I weld it in to make sure I'm ok.

[soltz]

Nice work ZZ
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