Hi, What would it take to convert a '76 Comet (4 door automatic, no AC, no Power Brake) from Power steering to non-power steering. Trying to create a tribute car that had no power anything. Thanks
Pitman arm and centerlink from a manual steering car. You might also want the steering box or it will be a littler hard to steer at slow speeds, the boxes have different ratios.
If you don't change the steering box it will be noticeably harder to steer, especially with wider tires most have these days ... What's with this tribute stuff I seem to see all over these days??? I sure don't my Cobra Jet as it was when I bought it 44 years ago(or for that matter my Comet or T-Bird)... Over the years I've made several changes to optional wheels, factory AM/FM Stereo, etc, etc and just this year I added power steering... Far more enjoyable to drive... I've already put more miles on it since April than I had in last three, maybe four years combined...
I have a power steering box, but converted to manual. It has a very good feel to it at speed, but at less than 10 mph, the steering is heavy. If you are strong, no problem, but my wife needed both hands pulling on one side of the wheel to park it. Best way I can think of to illustrate what it is like. I drove it for years like that with a 13 inch Grant steering wheel. Recently switched to the larger factory sport wheel. Haven't driven it, but the extra inch of leverage is sure to help. My first Comet was a manual set-up. Very light feel and a lot of spins lock-to-lock.
Yep the difference is something like 5¼ vs 3½ turns lock to lock... Factory manual feels like it takes a week to turn wheel enough to get around a corner... Even the P/S ratio is a little slower than most cars of today... Years back I installed the P/S sector on my factory manual CJ, wife couldn't drive it(not necessarily bad, kept her from racing the preacher's wife for beers)... After 26 years I'd grown tired of the extra effort myself, so as mentioned already, installed the full system... BTW the '68-'71 intermediates have the exact same steering sector as Ford used on Mav/Comet
