The Man

are there certain year of S10 that I need to look for for my 3rd gen? Are there aluminum steering boxs for S10's?

Thanks

ede

no aluminum boxes that i know of, or heard of. i ithnk any year will work, 1st gen camaros use the same bolt pattern on the steering box as thirdgens. i ithnk the most common is mid to late 80s 4 cylinder s10

StreetRCR

Any year will work. I didn't even change the arm. best thing I ever did and you'll agree.......until you hit a parking lot

Motor City Mike

Flaming River makes bolt in aluminum boxes, but they're quite pricey.

While the S-10 pitman arm physically fits, I'm told it is a little shorter than the F-body's arm, so steering geometry will be upset. A little known fact regarding steering boxes/arms on the 3rd gens is that they used the "605" series steering boxes (easily identified by round pitman arm top cover) on all 1982 models, except the T/A's and Z28's (they got the bigger stronger "800" series box, which they all eventually got in later years as GM phased out the 605's). Very few 3rd gens got the 605's in '83. Anyway, the 605 box has a smaller diameter pitman shaft, which fits the 122/525 series manual boxes. If you can get one of these arms (discontinued by GM and no aftermarket replacements available), correct length and drop is assured (retaining steering geometry) when installing a manual box.

StreetRCR

It's shorter, but i haven't noticed any adverse affects.....of course my car is built for drag racing though.

Motor City Mike

The main concern is a condition known as "orbital steering". This is generally caused when the ends of the center link are not properly positioned from side to side (a misaligned idler arm can cause this also). What happens is the car will want to steer itself when the suspension moves up and down though it's range of travel. If you have a hard launching drag car you may experience this condition.

I too have a drag car ('82 T/A, 9 sec. car) with the 525 manual box. I'm using the early 3rd gen (605 box) pitman arm. Absolutely no steering problems when coming down from a wheelstand. I will be selling my manual steering combo when I convert over to a manual rack system, probably later this year.

The Flaming River aluminum box that I previously mentioned, is based off the Chevy Vega box design. While it will physically bolt on to the F-body's "frame rail", it has a smaller diameter (and shorter length) input shaft, and smaller diameter pitman shaft (which is why they sell these boxes in a kit form with special intermediate shafts and pitman arms for specific applications). Lots of money and not worth the few extra pounds in weight savings, IMO.

The Man

When tyou get ready to sell it ..let me know. I am interested. I won't need it for a while.

Thanks

Randy82WS7

im bringing this back up from the dead:

im about to install an s-10 manual box on the 82 t/a and i need to find out something real quick

does 82 t/a box really have different sized pitman arm shaft diameter than the 83-up and s-10 ones ??

am i going to not be able to swap the t/a arm to the s-10 box with the t/a being an 82 ?

thanks

Motor City Mike

The only 3rd gen. F-body pitman arm that will fit on a manual S-10 box are the ones that came with 605 series boxes ('82 Camaros/Firebirds only, NOT Z28's/T/A's, which got the 800 boxes). An easy way to identify either steering gear is the 800 boxes have four bolts holding the pitman shaft cover on top of the box, while the 605 series has a round cover that is retained with a wire ring (no bolts).
Unfortunately not since the manual S-10 box (525 series) has a smaller diameter pitman shaft than what is on an '82 T/A box (800 series), but it's the same diameter as what's on the 605 box. A lot of guys around here just put the S-10 box and pitman arm assembly in and despite the different length pitman arm, according to them, it works fine. Ideally though, you should locate a car with a 605 box and get the pitman arm off of it.

Randy82WS7

thanks for info, cool

well i looked and yeah my t/a's box has bolts holding the cover onto it, hmm

looks like i will have to wait until i find another parts car so i can get pitman arm from, plus i need other parts anyways from a donor car for this t/a hmm..

the last parts firebird i had was an 84 s/e and it had alot of parts i could have used that i never saved, it had a 3.73 rear, manual doors, the pitman arm, and all kinds of other stuff that i need for the 82 so that i can swap to manual steering and manual doors and get rid of the opriginal 2.73 axle.

damn.

thanks

spud

I drove my bird or 2 years on the street, with the manual box and the s-10 pitman arm, The only ill effect I noticed was I could turn the steering wheel far enough to make skinny's rub the inner wheel well.
John

IHI

iTrader: (1)

The older S10 boxes must be different than the newer ones, I got mine off a 92 S-10 and there was no way in heck the pitman arm could be used, definatly shorter than the 3rd gens. It's really easy to swap them out which IMO is worth doing anyways "just because" there's my .02

onebinky

iTrader: (1)

So which pitman arm did you end up using IHI? The camaro/bird one, or an aftermarket replacement for an 82 base model?

I wanna take care of this before spring, because I removed my pump and just plugged the holes on my box. It's a bit tough having manual steering with 2.25:1 ratio

Thanks

IHI

iTrader: (1)

With my 92 S-10 box, I had to install the pitman arm off my 86 bird in order for it to work. Hopefully that will be politically correct in case 82 has a different style pitman arm than 86.

onebinky

iTrader: (1)

Thank you sir, you are both a gentleman and a scholar

Motor City Mike

The pitman arm off your '86 bird (800 series box) fit the S-10 manual box pitman shaft? I've always thought that the pitman shaft on the 800 boxes were a bigger diameter than what GM's manual boxes (122/525 series) and the '82 Camaro/Firebird (605 box) used.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

Dont ask me what my ps factory steering box number was All I do is buy and install The factory pitman arm came off no prob and went onto the 92 S-10 manual box no problem. Took me more time to make sure the box was centered for steering than it took to change all this over. I've never paid attention to serial numbers on anything, that's why when I come here and guys are talking LG4 or U869, etc...I just keep skimming other posts as this makes no sense to me and I could care less about factory numbers for my application!

84406

I have an 84 Z-28. I put in a box from an 86 s-10, used the pitman arm from the Z-28 and it all went on fine. It is a little tough in tight places but sure steers nice on the road.

Motor City Mike

I hear you IHI about keeping track of part/casting/series numbers, RPO's, etc and all their similarities/differences. I've always thought that all the manual boxes that GM made over the years used the smaller diameter pitman shaft, and it seems that this is not the case with the S-10 manual box.

The bottom line here is to use your original pitman arm (or an early 3rd gen F-body arm) when doing a manual box conversion, to ensure your steering linkage geometry stays intact.

IHI

iTrader: (1)

We're lucky in that aspect since we share with the S-10's. We picked up a couple extra S-10 steering boxes, installed one on my buddys 78 Malibu using his malibu pitman arm-bolted right up and worked great, that box was from a 89 S-10. Tried it again of another buddys 66 Goat and shaft was wayy smaller than his stock pitman arm hole, picked up a different man box off a chevelle that was supposed to work and even that shaft was too small-the pitman arm on the chevelle unit was way off the mark for trying to bolt into the goat so he ended up putting his ps unti back in.
Found out at nationals if your car slips off the jack pad which in turn runs the center link into the oil pan up front about 1/2-5/8" inch the knifes on the crank will not hit Just something to keep in mind when the unthinkable happens OH...3.48 stroke, thought I better add that in case stroked motors cars start falling off the jack-hate to have somebody get mad at me