Navigating around the issue of steering

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/01/2007 (6866 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Eleventh in a series

PROJECT Starliner waits patiently in the shop as students at Kildonan East Collegiate enjoy their break for the holidays season. With the chassis in the mechanical shop, we’ve replaced the upper and lower ball joints, A-arm bushings, upper shafts and front stabilizer bar bushings. Having replaced the old rubber bushings and any worn parts and adding new gas shock absorbers, we’re sure the Starliner will ride like new, so now it’s time to make it steer straight.

Our 1961 Ford Starliner was originally equipped with Master-Guide power steering when it left the factory and somewhere along the way it was converted to manual steering. To understand why this was done, we have to look at the system itself. Ford, as did many manufacturers in that era, used a belt-driven, engine-mounted pump that supplied pressurized fluid to a control valve and hydraulic ram or power cylinder that pushes the steering linkage in the appropriate direction.

This power-assisted system was used on various cars up into the late 1970s and while fairly reliable, it did require more maintenance than other integral power steering systems. One area of concern was the rubber seals that as they aged tended to leak fluid. Not replacing these seals in a timely manner led to heavier fluid leaks, binding metal parts and allowed debris to enter the system. When it came time to replace the hydraulic system, the cost of repairs would often be more than the owner wanted to bear and opting to change to a manual steering system was roughly only half the cost. Installing a new centre link, idler arm, and pitman arm would take care of the linkage changeover and the pump, hoses and ram would then be removed.

Today the rubber seals available are much better than those of 40 years ago and the parts and seals necessary to rebuild these systems are generally available from reproduction parts suppliers. Our Starliner is a full-size car and manoeuvring it around town and trying to park it with manual steering just doesn’t sound appealing to us at all, so a return to power steering is the plan. The problem was, the necessary parts to change back to the power-assisted system must come from a power-steering-equipped donor car. Our 1961 Galaxie shop manual identified the parts we needed and a Hollander interchange manual indicated they could come from a ’61 or ’62 Galaxie or Mercury. Armed with this information we went shopping on eBay, the on-line auction site. After a few weeks, our search found a system from a 1962 Mercury. It was complete and included the pitman arm, centre link, tie rods, control valve, hydraulic cylinder and the engine driven pump and mounting bracket. It took a bid of $100 to win the auction and another $50 for shipping.

Now we’ve just purchased a 45-year-old power-steering system that is going to need some work before we can install it, so with the steering gear on the way we purchased the rebuild kits needed to complete the rebuild for an additional $75.

The rebuild kits come with the installation instructions and that along with the illustrations in the 1961 Ford shop manual and a few hours of bench work, should give us some serviceable components. The pump rebuild kit consists of a few rubber o-rings, and seals and is fairly straightforward to install.

The control valve is the brain of the system and operates by steering wheel movement. That movement directs the pressure developed by the pump to a spool valve. With the wheel straight ahead the spool valve rests in the centre position, held by a light spring, inside the control housing and allows the fluid to circulate back to the pump. For a left turn the spool overcomes the pressure of the centering spring and slides to the right of the control valve allowing pressurized fluid to the right side of the power cylinder, pushing the steering linkage left. Turning the wheel in the opposite direction forces the valve to the left, resulting in the power cylinder being forced to the right.

The ram or power-cylinder seal kit is easily installed, but you have to thoroughly inspect the cylinder and piston rod for wear or damage. If the rod is scored or gouged, a new seal kit will fail in a relatively short period of time. If the piston rod is damaged, you have to replace the power cylinder as a unit. Reproduction parts suppliers have rebuilt power cylinders, control valves and pumps available and you can use your old unit as a core if you don’t feel up to the task of rebuilding them yourself. Core charges for control valves and power cylinders can run about $250 each and pumps $50 to $100 so obtaining a rebuildable core is certainly worthwhile.

With our rebuilt components in hand we can mount them and the power steering linkage on Project Starliner’s chassis and be at least partly on our way to happy motoring.

Comments or suggestions for Project Starliner, contact us at

larry.dargis@freepress.mb.ca