My existing steering box has quite a bit of play, so I had a choice of having it rebuilt, or buying a newer, BETTER steering box. The price difference was about $100. So I have chosen to upgrade the steering box. While I've read up quite a bit on the box, I haven't seen much more than one person report back. He had some issues, and I don't know they were resolved.

Still, there was plenty of other feedback on the net, so I have decided to take the risk.


These are the same steering gears as found in Nascars.

One thing they asked is for me to send my existing pump into them to have the soft parts rebuilt (seals and such) and to calibrate the pressure and flow to match the 670 box. So that increased the price to about $620 or so.

But still, I'm looking forward to this. There may be play elsewhere in my linkages, but compared to the massive play in the box itself, will eliminate nearly all of it.

 

I've used Lee on quite a few race cars. Never had a bit of trouble.

The best thing you can do is to send your pump for them to go through and tune-up. Having the pump and box matched is awesome and is just asking for it to work well.

Nice job.

ramey

 

Yeah. I have issues now because my ps pump is a unit from a 4th gen and as such doesn't have enough flow for a RB setup vs the R&P setup a 4th gen has. It whines hard and over heats on long trips.

 

Good luck. The last couple of us did not have good experiences with Lee. Mine is getting sent back to Lee this week. My 70k mile box felt no better when I got it back from them rebuilt than when I sent it.

 

Will make a note about Lee, been working on my 83 steering box but the question I have is about the pump. With the 454 power steering bracket the pump would end up were the steering gear is. Has anyone ran into this before any after market fix that is not junk? In the process of making my own bracket out of aluminum plate, would be a lot easier if there was an after market bracket. Have not seen one yet.

 

I had read about some of the issues, but I couldn't find that replicated in any post on other forums. Everyone raved about them. Heck they use the 670 in Nascar, so the design itself can't be bad.

I decided to do this because there is so much on-center play with my car. We tracked it down to being mostly the gear. I'm not saying that I don't have play elsewhere, its just most of it is the gear.

I'm sure the box could be bench adjusted, but the feel isn't great. And I want to Auto-X and Road Race the car.Right now I can't make subtle steering inputs. And infact on the highway ruts are killers because I have to move the wheel so much just to get any input. I can't trust my car in a corner as is, no matter how flat it corners I can't put the wheels where I want them.

 

I know the feeling completely, and agree with everything you have said. My on center performance is bad to. And just as bad after the rebuild. I am very curious to hear how yours turns out. This is with every single steering component forward of the firewall being brand new.

 

Most everything on the front of my car is OEM or Factory, but I intend to go through and replace all of them later.

My gear box is horrible, and the feel is horrible. The wheel will literally move 3-4" left/right before I actually begin to turn the wheels. So it has to go, either by being rebuilt, or replaced. The 670 series isn't that much more so I'm going with that based on feedback found on the net. I'm hoping I don't get into the same situation that 1 or 2 others on this forum have had, but I can't find any other threads indicating the same issues.

So for now I'll take the chance.

Plus, my power assist has always been laggy. Try to change direction fast enough and the power assist just can't change fast enough so there is an intial resistance that causes the driver to turn the wheel harder, and then suddenly it gets easy and the driver ends up with excessive wheel movement.

All of it adds up to destroy driver confidence. I've learned to ignore the faults and where the limits are, but anyone else who go into the car would be scared by the feedback the wheel gives.

95% of its time will be as a streetcar/cruise. But I want to get more regularly into Auto-X and HPDE events. Not sure if I want to risk wheel to wheel because frankly I like my car being pretty and W2W carries with it a large risk of damage.

 

Yup, I understand what you are saying.

HPDE's are tons of fun, and like you say limited risk of damage. Just make sure your brakes are up to the task.