Rack & Pinion Steering for '57 Ranchero

[Frankenstein57]

When it came time to set the camber, caster and toe in on my ranchero, we went to the ford shop manual. They had different settings for squad cars, wagons and other vehicles. We went with a setting close to the squad/ambulance. 3/4 degrees negative camber, 1 degree positive caster. This car has manual steering and drives quite well. I have gone through the suspension and steering, everything isn't new , but its all tight. I did have a bit of slop in the box, I adjusted some out. I think I set the toe in about a 16th out. I always felt if you had a loose end in the steering, that it would increase the toe out on the highway. We set everything ourselves with a camber/ caster gauge common to circle trackers. And a simple toe gauge. How did you arrive at 6 degrees positive? On dirt late models we would put a ton of negative caster on power steering cars, when you turn right it dropped a ton of weight on the left rear.  Mark

[Ford Blue blood]

70 Boss 302 SCCA B sedan, with the other mods 6 gave a real good tire patch and even heat build across the tread on most "skill" tracks and really worked well on high speed tracks.  Pretty much by the "book" from Ford.  Many newer Hi Po cars run 4 -5 from the factory.....

[canadian_ranchero]

we are only saying to use more caster on a rack or p/s box change over that has vague or twitchy steering.if you have stock manual steering stay with the stock caster

[Ford Blue blood]

Yes, if you tried to run 6 degrees with the stock worm and sector you would truely understand "power steering by armstrong"!

[57crewcabbuilder]

I realize this is a very old post, but it's a subject that's still current, and as they say, "I've Been There & Done That".

In the late '70's I built a crewcab '57 Ranchero to tow my race car. I swapped in a 460 so it would have enough power to get the job done, but this motor is very heavy and I knew steering effort would be an issue.  My solution was a, at the time, late model Ford truck power gear.  This box actually fits very well, with one of the stock bolt holes in the right place, I added a bolt hole, and welded a tube on top of the frame for the 3rd one.  I used a old tie rod ball & taper to reforge the taper in the steering arm the opposite direction so the cross link would work.

However, with the 460 being so large the stock exhaust manifold wouldn't clear the Ford truck gear, so I built a set of Tri-Y headers.  With almost any other engine this wouldn't be necessary, such as a FE, a Y-block, or a Ford small block.

I've also done several Chevy Caviler rack & pinion swaps in '54 to '56 Fords.  As others have pointed out one of the problem with these early front ends is a lack of positive caster, there is also one other problem when using a rack, the steering arms are to long.  On the '54 to '56's it's easily solved by machining custom steering arms, because the stock arm is removable, but not so on the '57 to '64's.

I once had a '57 Custom 300 with Fatman spindles, they are fabricated from steel stock, so he should be able to build a set with shorter steering arms.

As for the caster problem, so far I've never found a good solution, I've looked at moving the upper control arm bracket rearward, but haven't had the opportunity to try it.