Power Steering

[Aussie Mike]

Hi All,

the next project I'm trying to knock over while to body is off is a power steering conversion.

Why? you ask. Well it's not to make the steering effort easier although that is a bonus when parking. The big advantage is the increase in speed of the rack. The CR uses a VL Commodore donor rack. The Manual version is more than 4 turns lock to lock. The power rack is only 2.7 turns. I figure a quick rack is an advantage in such a short wheelbase car.

Several folks have already done the conversion and after driving one of them I'm sold.

So far I've found pretty much all the bits to set it up. As usual I haven't got the easy off the shelf parts, I've got items I picked up here and there.

I picked up a new power steering pump I liked the look of at a swap meet. Lightweight aluminum construction. Later investigation revealing it was a BA Ford Falcon item. It was just the bare pump, no mounting or pulley but the price was right.

Before you say "Why didn't you just buy the GM one for the LS1 motor?" My response is "Where's the fun in that?"

So the job on the weekend was to adapt the pump to my LS motor. I started with a block of aluminum about 150x100x25 and a spare cylinder head. I took a bunch of measurements of the accessory mount holes on the front of the spare head and then turned that into a layout on the block and then drilled it to suit.

Here's the rough mount bolted up to the motor. I've also milled it down to about 16mm thick.



With the mount fitting OK now I just needed to trim away all the excess material. First up was marking out what needed to be removed.



Then mount it in the mill and start carving away. I like using the rotary table for this sort of stuff because the part has a lot of odd angles and can be quite hard to grip in the vice. It's also quicker to change position than directly bolting it to the table.




A bit more finessing and the mount is finished. The mount also acts as part of my belt tensioner setup for the Altenator which would have been something I would have had to mess with if I used the stock GM setup.

You can also see I've welded an AN-10 fitting onto the inlet of the pump. It originally had just a socket that probably connected to an integrated plastic reservoir.



Mounted on the motor and it's turned out pretty good.





The next job is making the pulley to suit. I machined up the serpentine pulleys for the water pump annd alternator so already have the technique for cutting the belt grooves sorted.

It starts with a big lump of aluminium sitting in the jaws of the Lathe. This is 150mm x 50mm and most of it will turn into swarf in the tray under the lathe.



To be continued...