Thread: My shaft it TOO short!!! What do i do?

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Well.. my problem now is i have a saginaw box out of an early 90's f150 that im using for cowl steering and the sector shaft is too short, by about 3 inches. The way it sits now, the end of the shaft is about an inch from the cowl plus i need the splines sticking out for the pitman arm.

So i took the sector shaft to a local fabricator/machinist to see if he could lengthen it. He said he could try but i went to pick up someother parts from him today and said it can be done but he advises against it. The parts are hardened and need to be annealed and just woldnt be stong enough after wards.

I thought after i heard that, since its a saginaw box, find another one with a longer sector shaft.

So does anyone know what would have the longer shaft? I was thinking jeep or 70's chevy truck/car.

Thanks,
John

A little planning goes a long ways-----Didn't you do a bit of research beforehand??? There are numerous posts about "cowl steering" over on the HAMB website. I suggest you look over there---they have a good "search" function. One of the reasons that you will have a problem getting any shop to "extend" the sector shaft is because of the liability they incur by welding on a steering component. If it breaks going down the road and kills somebody, the buck will stop at their shop after all the lawsuits shake out.

I did do research. Looked on the HAMB and most of the cowl steering boxes i saw that were used were bmw 2002, dodge dart, and late 70's f100s. Couldnt find a beemer box, dart box was too bulky, and the sector shaft on the f100 box also need to be legnthened.

With the f100 box, the pitman arm needs to be cut at the splines. Then that part need to be turned down to fit inside a piece of tubing and a new pitman arm need to be fabricated that bolts to the tube. And the box also needs to be reversed like a corvair. Thought that was just way too much work and i didnt think i could do it myself.

I also had a sprint car box but that was too bulky and stuck out too far.

So i went with the f150 box since it was compact (about the size of a corvair box, if not smaller) and i could tuck it up in the cowl frame work. And it also turned the right way.

Sorry Guy---My first answer sounded more ignorant than I intended it to be. Do you have access to a digital camera that can show some good pictures of what you have? I am sure that I can design something to help you out. An extension of 3" kind of sucks, because it isn't really long enough to put an auxiliary support bearing on it, but its too much overhung loading on the box to just let it stick out that much without some kind of secondery support.

Yeah.. ill try and snap some pics of it this week. Thanks.

Ok... found a pic not of my box but of the same one im using.



I did a little research on the saginaw steering boxes. It seems that there are 2 different size sector shafts, 1" and 1 1/8". And looking at the boxes, it looks like 63-82 corvette, 61-7? f100, and 65-68 mustang have the same basic box, just a different case for mounting. So it seems that i can use one of these, hopefully. Just need to find out the shaft diameter and find one that is the same.

It looks to me like you may be in luck. that shaft is long enough to cut off about 2" from the end of it. Then you will need it to be 5 1/2" longer, which allows for an extension and an external support bearing. If you can get a second sector shaft from another similar box, then you can cut it off and slide a machined sleeve over it, then pin and rosette weld the sleeve to the cut off end of the existing unit and put a support bearing on the outside of the sleeve. Be sure to use a 'self aligning' type of bearing, rather than a rigid bushing, as this will allow for any slight misalignment of the shaft without causing it to bind as it turns. Since your pitman arm will only travel through about 90 to 120 degrees total, it should work fine.