What idler arm is used with the fast ratio pitman arm?

[Randy Wilson]

On my 69 Road Runner, I installed a reman PS steering box with the 1 1/4 sector. I bought a new pitman arm(moog) from R Ehrenberg that was supposed to work in a 69 B body when using that box. I replaced the idler arm with a new moog unit but can not recall if it was anything special to the box swap. Upon completion, I noticed that the drag link was not level and leaning down a little towards the driver side. I called Firm Feel to get their opinion and send them a pic. The person said a pic was not necessary because he knew what the problem was ; the steering box mount on the K member was not jigged correctly at the factory and the box was drooped down. Apparently, they see this often enough when working on factory K frames.

My options were 1. to correct it myself, 2. send the K frame to them and they jig and weld it corectly or 3. do what the factory did and shim the box at the mounting points. I have pulled a few boxes out of cars over the years and have noticed shim blocks that were factory installed.

I had 2 pieces of metal machined about 3/8 thick and installed them at 2 of the 3 mounting points nearest the bottom and wah-la, the drang link leveled out. In fact, I remembered that the box that I pulled out was in contact with the inner fender in a hard way. Now there is about an 1/8 of an inch gap there.

Thoughts anyone? TIA

 

[gkent]

Whatever works !!

 

[autoxcuda]

On my 69 Road Runner, I installed a reman PS steering box with the 1 1/4 sector. I bought a new pitman arm(moog) from R Ehrenberg that was supposed to work in a 69 B body when using that box. I replaced the idler arm with a new moog unit but can not recall if it was anything special to the box swap. Upon completion, I noticed that the drag link was not level and leaning down a little towards the driver side. I called Firm Feel to get their opinion and send them a pic. The person said a pic was not necessary because he knew what the problem was ; the steering box mount on the K member was not jigged correctly at the factory and the box was drooped down. Apparently, they see this often enough when working on factory K frames.

My options were 1. to correct it myself, 2. send the K frame to them and they jig and weld it corectly or 3. do what the factory did and shim the box at the mounting points. I have pulled a few boxes out of cars over the years and have noticed shim blocks that were factory installed.

I had 2 pieces of metal machined about 3/8 thick and installed them at 2 of the 3 mounting points nearest the bottom and wah-la, the drang link leveled out. In fact, I remembered that the box that I pulled out was in contact with the inner fender in a hard way. Now there is about an 1/8 of an inch gap there.

Thoughts anyone? TIA

Nice fix!

That would make sense if the k-member steering box mount was made bad.

I’d think if that car was always that way, it would prematurely wear idlers. Especially the newer moog plain bearing style (original were rubber bushings)

That’s also part of the process on how to dial in bumpsteer. But in that case you slot the idler bolt holes to also move idler up/down in parallel with the steering box movement.