Soooo, many blood,sweat and tears later, we are *almost driveable. Now for the issue of the power steering. Previous owner put headers on, which apparently caused clearance issues for power steering (and kickdown!), and this is what was attempted to be done about it? I don't even know whats going on here. Sorry for upside down pictures, photobucket was being a pain: http://i706.photobucket.com/albums/ww69/succubussteph/SANY0005.jpg http://i706.photobucket.com/albums/ww69/succubussteph/SANY0004.jpg Anyway, my dad is doing most of the mechanical work, but we cant figure out the best way to work around the headers and fix this, so I am trying to make his life easier. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do here? Any underside pictures of your Mavericks would be really appreciated to get an idea of where we could/should put certain things. Thanks!
That power steering drop bracket look pretty short. Probably why they made some sort of extension. They sell the drop brackets for the slave cylinder to bolt to tha tmay be longer than the one you have. When I had power steering I had to use one, but I still had to move it forward a couple inches to clear because bolted on the the stock location it still would not clear the headers.
I ordered one of those drop brackets from Auto Krafters, It was too short, did some measuring and had one custom made and it works fine, just had it made the same way but longer and had the hole drilled in it a bit more forward to clear the header, bolted in the same location and same bolt holes. And the custom one only cost me $20.00 compared to the $30.00+ from AK.
Problem Solved. You should make more of those and sell them. I tried a couple and none fit right when I did mine. I think they use the some one for the Mustangs and they just dont fit right on a Maverick. I ended up taking out the power steering anyways.
Oh great thank you so much everyone, that was very helpful! I was afraid it was going to be more complicated than that.
yvw Don't you know the Maverick was promoted as the simple car! But that was long ago.....before the dang things rusted and every bolt and nut on em got stuck!
I'm disappointed to hear the drop brackets on the market do not work. I would be willing to get rid of the power steering if I had the manual parts...
I bought mine from Headman, I had no issues, it lined up fine, and I drove that car for years with it.
Drop Bracket Here is my bracket; it was custom made by PO. I had it welded abt 18mos ago and no problem since. They "PO" welded and bolted it to the frame rail. I think bolting wud have bn sufficient. I cleaned it and painted after this pix was made; I did'nt take a pix subsequentially. U can see it's probably lower than the AK setup - works well. I hpe to put the Borgesen kit on in the future and all this stuff will come off. I have no intention of eliminating the PS.
What headers were you using? I think I had Hedman headers at first when I used their bracket. It would hit at full turn and was much better moved a few inches over. Well it was better until it broke off from the welds. After a few times having different guys weld it on I go a manual drag link and swapped it out. Been meaning to put in the manual gear box too for the last 15 years, but everytime I have the engine out I forget to swap the boxes.
I've got a flowtech drop bracket and it cleared with room to spare with my headmans. If anyone needs it 20.00 shipped in the lower 48
I have that same Flowtech bracket. It's a bit longer than the one in the pictures, and seems to be very well made. Turns out my 351w swap made it unnecessary though, and I ended up using the stock bracket. I was pretty surprised that the Windsor actually SOLVED a common header clearance problem considering the multitude of other ones it caused... Anyway if you need one, buy Joe's. But if someone else needs one after that, I'll offer the same deal for mine.
