Steering Conversion Recommendations?

Stakebed said:
Matthew, Willys America provides numerous labor duties. Essentially they are a full service Willys restoration shop that sells parts. I recognize they are a continent away from you. Maybe a closer Willys business can offer rebuilding services?
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+1 on WA. Wasn't aware that they took in small restoration projects like a steering box though. Good thing to know.
 
Matt,
When I liberated my FC from the pound, I was pleasantly surprised to find that although the steering action was appallingly loose, the steering box itself was perfectly fine.

The Willys FC-170 Forward Control employs a version of the Ross box that's very similar to the ones used in the pick ups and wagons.

If you turn the steering wheel slightly, is there quite a bit of lash before the pitman arm sticking out of the steering gear box responds to the input?

If it's not the box that's resulting in your loose steering, nearly all of the myriad of other steering-related components are reasonably easy to source and to service.

Break out the cardboard, find a willing accomplice, limbo under there and make sure you're not barking up the wrong tree.

Check each and everything for play, from the tie rod ends, the king pins, the wheel bearings (and even tires and leaf spring bushings), and beyond!

There's a PDF of the Service Manual here:
https://www.oldwillysforum.com/foru...al-for-1954-1960-jeep-utility-vehicles-pdf.3/
 
To the OP -

I feel like you've gotten a lot of disparate info and feedback from the forum, and if I were you, I wouldn't really know where to go next. So, as you may be gleaming from the responses, there are a few different options you can take with your steering, and all those options have some advantages and some disadvantages. Which one is the best option for you probably depends a lot on some of the other aspects of your intended use for the Willys, additional upgrades and changes you might want to make, your budget, your skill set with mechanical and fab work etc. One of the challenges with Willys and old jeeps is that while they seem common and simple (in truth they really are), they are not heavily supported by aftermarket suppliers with lots of quality upgrade 'kits' that have had all the bugs worked out of them. Most upgrades have some amount of 'customized' and pieced together nature using knowledge and experience you find on forums like this. Additionally, different forums can lean more towards true restorations and/or only NOS parts etc, and other can lean more toward heavily modified etc. This forum (OWF) has a pretty big range of members, from very traditional OEM style wagons to heavily modified frame swaps etc. The hard part for you is figuring out what you want from your wagon after you assess your usage, skills and budget etc. Then being clear with the membership what your goals are....in this case, I think you were quite clear that you were looking for some options regarding improving the stock Ross steering (and that is sort of assuming that is what you have - many have already been upgraded by previous owners with varying degrees of quality). So it sort of looks like you have 3 options:

1) rebuild the OEM Ross box - quality parts are the hard part....and even when rebuilt perfectly, it will be more than serviceable, but its not modern steering. There are a lot of linkages and connections throughout the entire steering system, and all those connections each has just a bit of play, and that adds up to a lot of slop sometimes. At the same time, I actually think road feel with a good ross box is quite nice and even better than the 70s era power steering swaps that are common.

2) Saginaw swap (this can be either power or manual) - probably the most popular steering upgrade, but requires a bit more fab work with welding a mount on the frame rail, and then depending on where or how you mount the box, there is some work to be done getting the steering shaft routed under the cross member and then connected to the old steering column (after you cut the worm gear off and using a special bushing from AA). Actually, its easier to do a saggy swap and just replace the whole column, but then you really do sacrifice some of the classic original look/feel. Manual saggy boxes can come with 24:1 ratio, which actually gives you easier steering than the 17:1 or so Ross box....but its like over 6 turns lock to lock, so its certainly not quick steering! Power boxes come in a range of ratios, many around 16:1 for jeeps, but can go all the way down to 12:1 which is probably overly responsive (twitchy steering). challenge with power is figuring out the pump mount.

3) Herm or Astro van-style reverse pitman arm box (herms has usually been done as manual as its was originally targeted for 4cyl CJs, but Astro conversion certainly could be power box if you can figure out the pump mount). I bet nobody at herms has really tried to see if and where the box mounts on the frame rail behind the cross-member and if it has interference issues with the L6 engine - it was designed more for 4cyl CJs. The ford herm box doesn't fit in CJs with the v6 and front dump exhaust.....but it does sound like members here have made it work. guessing a pump set-up will be a bit custom fabbed. I don't know what the ratios are for these boxes.

As you can see, none of the 3 are trivial, but they are not impossibly hard, nor are they pre-assembled kits...all but the ross box rebuild requires a bit of fab work with mounting the box on the frame rail, figuring out the right pitman arm length and drop, and probably reworking the cross-over drag link from pitman to knuckle (assuming you already have the 1 piece tie rod), and also figuring out some steering shaft routing etc. Getting quality parts for the ross box is getting more difficult, and there is no buy a rebuilt unit option, so you most likely gotta go about the rebuild yourself (which I think learning how to do this stuff is half the fun of owning a Willys), or maybe you can get the work down at WillysAmerica. So maybe the start is what is important to you? How important is originality? Is it the slop in the steering wheel that is bothersome? Or is it the manual steering/lack of power? Are you planning on bigger tires, suspension lift and using it off-road, or is it more of a street cruiser.

Unless you really are trying to go more than just a sorta stock driver, the process will be slow, but I say start with a full inspection of the all the steering linkage parts - see where the slop is coming from if that is the issue. Eventually you may have to pull the ross box out (which actually is a bit of a hassle), disassemble it, and inspect. You may be able to turn or replace the pins on the sector shaft, redo the bushing on the bellcrank (there is a cool tapered roller bearing upgrade for that bushing that is nice!), and make sure the connections on the drag link between the sector and bellcrank aren't totally wasted. Also, these old willys use a closed knuckle on the front axle - they have a tendency to be forgotten about and they require some maintenance on the king pins etc....no matter how good the steering linkage is, if the knuckle is all wobbly, it won't drive straight or turn well. Some caster shims can really help with driveability too (although they do increase steering effort slightly on a manual box).

Last thought......Sometimes, until you know for sure what you want, just keep driving it. When i first got my current CJ5 10 years ago, one of the first things I tried to figure out was how to improve the ross steering....10 years later, a suspension lift, transfer case low gears, big tires, fabbed 2nd gas tank, engine rebuilds, brake upgrades, locked front and rear diffs, reupholstered seats, knuckle work and studs, high steer TRE conversions, body work, roll cage work, bumper work, two different frame repair issues, and lots and lots of hard core trail wheeling, I still haven't done a damn thing to the steering box other than add some lubricant. Do you really need to do anything to it immediately? It doesn't do you a lot of good to fab up a PS pump bracket or figure out how to fit the reverse rotation box in the engine bay frame rail if in a couple years your decide the worn out L6 engine needs to be swapped. Going through the hassle of rebuilding a small manual ross box only to realize its not what you want for 32" tires and locked front axle isn't great either. After 10 years I am finally going with a power saggy swap in my CJ (shh...don't tell anyone yet, its still secret)....I already have power saggy in my wagon. Saggy stuff is very tried and true - and if engine swaps happen, its a bit easier to rework the steering shaft and not have to move the box. happy to help you through some of those details if you like. Check in with other members on the reverse rotation box as well - as those don't work on my v6 CJ, I can't help you there with the details.
 
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FinoCJ said:
To the OP - I feel like you've gotten a lot of disparate info and feedback from the forum, and if I were you, I wouldn't really know where to go next. So, as you may be gleaming from the responses, there are a few different options you can take with your steering, and all those options have some advantages and some disadvantages. Which one is the best option for you probably depends a lot on some of the other aspects of your intended use for the Willys, additional upgrades and changes you might want to make, your budget, your skill set with mechanical and fab work etc. One of the challenges with Willys and old jeeps is that while they seem common and simple (in truth they really are), they are not heavily supported by aftermarket suppliers with lots of quality upgrade 'kits' that have had all the bugs worked out of them. Most upgrades have some amount of 'customized' and pieced together nature using knowledge and experience you find on forums like this. Additionally, different forums can lean more towards true restorations and/or only NOS parts etc, and other can lean more toward heavily modified etc. This forum (OWF) has a pretty big range of members, from very traditional OEM style wagons to heavily modified frame swaps etc. The hard part for you is figuring out what you want from your wagon after you assess your usage, skills and budget etc. Then being clear with the membership what your goals are....in this case, I think you were quite clear that you were looking for some options regarding improving the stock Ross steering (and that is sort of assuming that is what you have - many have already been upgraded by previous owners with varying degrees of quality). So it sort of looks like you have 3 options:
1) rebuild the OEM ross box - quality parts are the hard part....and even when rebuilt perfectly, it will be more than serviceable, but its not modern steering. There are a lot of linkages and connections throughout the entire steering system, and all those connections each has just a bit of play, and that adds up to a lot of slop sometimes. At the same time, I actually think road feel with a good ross box is quite nice and even better than the 70s era power steering swaps that are common.

2) saginaw swap (this can be either power or manual) - probably the most popular steering upgrade, but requires a bit more fab work with welding a mount on the frame rail, and then depending on where or how you mount the box, there is some work to be done getting the steering shaft routed under the cross member and then connected to the old steering column (after you cut the worm gear off and using a special bushing from AA). Actually, its easier to do a saggy swap and just replace the whole column, but then you really do sacrifice some of the classic original look/feel. Manual saggy boxes can come with 24:1 ratio, which actually gives you easier steering than the 17:1 or so Ross box....but its like over 6 turns lock to lock, so its certainly not quick steering! Power boxes come in a range of ratios, many around 16:1 for jeeps, but can go all the way down to 12:1 which is probably overly responsive (twitchy steering). challenge with power is figuring out the pump mount.

3) herm or astro vas style reverse pitman arm box (herms has usually been done as manual as its was originally targeted for 4cyl CJs, but astro conversion certainly could be power box if you can figure out the pump mount). I bet nobody at herms has really tried to see if and where the box mounts on the frame rail behind the cross-member and if it has interference issues with the L6 engine - it was designed more for 4cyl CJs. The ford herm box doesn't fit in CJs with the v6 and front dump exhaust.....but it does sound like members here have made it work. guessing a pump set-up will be a bit custom fabbed. I don't know what the ratios are for these boxes.

As you can see, none of the 3 are trivial, but they are not impossibly hard, nor are they pre-assembled kits...all but the ross box rebuild requires a bit of fab work with mounting the box on the frame rail, figuring out the right pitman arm length and drop, and probably reworking the cross-over drag link from pitman to knuckle (assuming you already have the 1 piece tie rod), and also figuring out some steering shaft routing etc. Getting quality parts for the ross box is getting more difficult, and there is no buy a rebuilt unit option, so you most likely gotta go about the rebuild yourself (which I think learning how to do this stuff is half the fun of owning a Willys), or maybe you can get the work down at WillysAmerica. So maybe the start is what is important to you? How important is originality? Is it the slop in the steering wheel that is bothersome? Or is it the manual steering/lack of power? Are you planning on bigger tires, suspension lift and using it off-road, or is it more of a street cruiser.

Unless you really are trying to go more than just a sorta stock driver, the process will be slow, but I say start with a full inspection of the all the steering linkage parts - see where the slop is coming from if that is the issue. Eventually you may have to pull the ross box out (which actually is a bit of a hassle), disassemble it, and inspect. You may be able to turn or replace the pins on the sector shaft, redo the bushing on the bellcrank (there is a cool tapered roller bearing upgrade for that bushing that is nice!), and make sure the connections on the drag link between the sector and bellcrank aren't totally wasted. Also, these old willys use a closed knuckle on the front axle - they have a tendency to be forgotten about and they require some maintenance on the king pins etc....no matter how good the steering linkage is, if the knuckle is all wobbly, it won't drive straight or turn well. Some caster shims can really help with driveability too (although they do increase steering effort slightly on a manual box).

Last thought......Sometimes, until you know for sure what you want, just keep driving it. When i first got my current CJ5 10 years ago, one of the first things I tried to figure out was how to improve the ross steering....10 years later, a suspension lift, transfer case low gears, big tires, fabbed 2nd gas tank, engine rebuilds, brake upgrades, locked front and rear diffs, reupholstered seats, knuckle work and studs, high steer TRE conversions, body work, roll cage work, bumper work, two different frame repair issues, and lots and lots of hard core trail wheeling, I still haven't done a damn thing to the steering box other than add some lubricant. Do you really need to do anything to it immediately? It doesn't do you a lot of good to fab up a PS pump bracket or figure out how to fit the reverse rotation box in the engine bay frame rail if in a couple years your decide the worn out L6 engine needs to be swapped. Going through the hassle of rebuilding a small manual ross box only to realize its not what you want for 32" tires and locked front axle isn't great either. After 10 years I am finally going with a power saggy swap in my CJ (shh...don't tell anyone yet, its still secret)....I already have power saggy in my wagon. Saggy stuff is very tried and true - and if engine swaps happen, its a bit easier to rework the steering shaft and not have to move the box. happy to help you through some of those details if you like. Check in with other members on the reverse rotation box as well - as those don't work on my v6 CJ, I can't help you there with the details.
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Dang, thank you for the thorough and thoughtful reply. I indeed need to continue weighing my options but I believe right now I'm just going to take my time to UNDERSTAND the stock steering system so I can properly inspect it for obvious problems. If it's simple I'll fix it now and kick this can down the road when I have more money and skill.
 
FinoCJ said:
3) Herm or Astro van-style reverse pitman arm box (herms has usually been done as manual as its was originally targeted for 4cyl CJs, but Astro conversion certainly could be power box if you can figure out the pump mount). I bet nobody at herms has really tried to see if and where the box mounts on the frame rail behind the cross-member and if it has interference issues with the L6 engine - it was designed more for 4cyl CJs. The ford herm box doesn't fit in CJs with the v6 and front dump exhaust.....but it does sound like members here have made it work. guessing a pump set-up will be a bit custom fabbed. I don't know what the ratios are for these boxes.
Click to expand...

Herm has a specific "utility" kit for trucks and wagons, separate from his CJ kit, and has photos on his website of it installed on a utility frame. Depending which steering box you buy, it can be manual or power conversion.
 
templarknight1762 said:
Dang, thank you for the thorough and thoughtful reply. I indeed need to continue weighing my options but I believe right now I'm just going to take my time to UNDERSTAND the stock steering system so I can properly inspect it for obvious problems. If it's simple I'll fix it now and kick this can down the road when I have more money and skill.
Click to expand...

Good plan. Be forewarned, the drag link rebuild kit that all the vendors sell (manufactured by Crown Automotive) is junk. Don't bother with it unless your parts are so shot that you have no other option.
 
When I began working on the original steering setup on my first Willys truck, I appreciated that it was a very simple system. Parts, rotate, pivot or push pull.
Then I counted how many potential failure points there were...my notes state 31. I rebuilt everything. You can definitely improve the steering but it will never be like modern steering. For my useage the rebuild was worth it.
 
FinoCJ, Nice reply and some really good information.

A Willys truck or wagon won't have a bell crank until 1962 1/2 when the Tornado was introduced. I have looked into a tapered bearing conversion on mine and it wasn't an option. I heard that the FC's had a kit though.

The reason I keep suggesting that Templar rebuild and keep the stock Ross steering (at least for now) is that it is the easiest, cheapest, fastest, and least skilled required option. Plus, no one in their right mind would go to the trouble to hang a power steering pump on a 226. All of the power steering options are a moot point without a motor swap at the same time. Electric would work and wouldn't be an issue down the road if a motor swap was in the future, but that isn't for everyone either.
 
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Andy FitzGibbon said:
Good plan. Be forewarned, the drag link rebuild kit that all the vendors sell (manufactured by Crown Automotive) is junk. Don't bother with it unless your parts are so shot that you have no other option.
Click to expand...
Yes, very true. A few bits of the kit can be used, but definitely keep the old parts and reuse as much as possible.
 
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