Sorry for the daft question, but I want to replace the steering on my 78, as it goes where it wants to at the moment. Looked in Rock auto site and there seems to be a number of choices. How do I tell if it’s a Ford gear or Saginaw? thanks for the help in advance Barry
Make sure it's the not the rag joint rather than the steering gear. Those commercial rag joints are bad to fail and yes, "it goes where it wants" when the rag is shot.
Okay, on the intermediates, like your 78 and my 79, Ford did not use rag joints, they molded urethane around the joint. It can be rebuilt, using a rag joint, but you have to buy some hardware, and cut off pieces, in order to fit the rag joint, then bolt it down. Use the forum's search function, look at threads posted in the last five or six years, as I have posted photos of Babe's steering shaft assembly with that rag joint installed. And, the specific size rag joint I used was a Dorman Help! product. Of course, there were three or four sizes, it was on the smaller end of the scale.
Saginaw box has 4 bolts on top cover plate,ford box 2 bolts.Inspect all steering components,ball joints,bushing and rod ends for excessive play.
Thanks guys very helpful I have gone over the rest of the joints and they seem ok, had some play in the steering coupling, but tightening the bolt seemed to help. Main areas now are about 10 to 15 degrees movement in the steering box input shaft before the pitman arm moves so I thought I would go through and change the major bits whilst I have some time. I also have some lost movement that seems to come from the tilt part of the steering column, so I need to do some erase arch as I have no idea how that works thanks again for the help
The tilt is actuated with the turn signal stalk. Push away from you perpendicularly to the turn signal functions till you hear a click, then lift or lower.
Ah, another Brit with a 78 ! Hi Snoopy, looks like you bought that one from the Norfolk dealer? I am down in sunny Darzet Welcome to the Ranchero forum, great bunch of helpful guys here !
Hi love joy No, I got it from a guy near St Albans. Certainly seems to be a nice bunch here, which is handy as I know almost nothing about these cars.
Just for clarity. I thought this steering joint was a rag joint? If so could it have been swapped in for the original at some point? Cheers
Looks like a replacement rag to me. Difficult to tell from this photo. Can you tell if it is torn when rotating the steering wheel back and forth? This is a photo from a 1975 Ranchero. I don't know if Ford changed the assembly after 1976.
No it looks pretty much new. With the steering lock ON there is about 10 to 15 deg slop, which does not appear to be present at the bottom of the column
Looking at the pic, it appears the coupler isn't installed far enough onto the steering gear's input shaft. Maybe it's my eyes, but I see splines below the coupler, that shouldn't be the case. Hope I am wrong.
Yeah, that has to be a replacement. Also, of course, when properly installed, it should have a 12-point headed bolt to secure it; is the bolt there? In my mind, I'm thinking it's loose or just plain gone, and the coupler is jumping the shaft splines.
Yep it’s a 12 sided bolt and it’s tight, I got about 1/2 a turn on it when I first got the car, the movement is above that. If I get some to stop the shaft moving at that joint I get still get the movement at the wheel, it seems to be coming from the area of the tilt. I need to get into that, but I have never tried working on a column, so it’s a trip into the dark cheers
It's actually a pretty simple design, you shouldn't have too much trouble. And if you need parts, that specific column head design was used on 1980-1991 E-series vans, F-series trucks and Broncos. Babe's column head is actually from an '82 Club Wagon van, column-mounted shift quadrant and all. Anyway, if you have any questions about column disassembly, don't hesitate to reach out by PM to me.
