Pitman Arm

C

Cajun

Senior Member
Does anyone manufacturer a Pitman arm that has the square Model A connection on top and a hole on the bottom to fit a modern tie rod end?

I saw an A with modern tie rod ends and want to do that for safety reasons. That person had cut his Pitman arm and welded it to a later Ford arm. I would rather not do it that way.

Thanks for any help.
 
We run our speedster in VCRA/Greatrace type rallies and frequently make very hard turns or drifts. I am not comfortable with the original design for this type of driving.
 
I suspect you will break something else long before you break original drag links or tierods that are properly adjusted.

Joe
 
Cajun said:
Does anyone manufacturer a Pitman arm that has the square Model A connection on top and a hole on the bottom to fit a modern tie rod end?

I saw an A with modern tie rod ends and want to do that for safety reasons. That person had cut his Pitman arm and welded it to a later Ford arm. I would rather not do it that way.

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...

I will assume there is not enough meat to put a hole the end of your
pitman arm where the ball is.
I definetly do not advocate welding on any steering component ESPECIALLY on a high performance or race car.
It is relatively easy to make a pitman arm from a billet, especially one for an A where the big end is square. It can be done with hand tools.
Just be patient.
For your use, I might suggest you consider using chromemoly spherical rod ends. They are far superior to stock tie rod ends for high performance applications. With a flat washer installed on the outside, they will never come off when you hit the wall or another car like a stock type will.
 
There should be plenty of room on the end of an original arm to remove the ball and drill / ream the hole required for a modern tie rod end. I would be concerned about the other end for the original parts are smaller and you may have a problem doing the same modification. I would not agree that this type of change should be done. If you are concerned about making the tie rod ends work a bit easier, try the Teflon inserts. Gar Williams
 
I don't believe either the arm on spindle or the pitman have enough meat around the integral balls for anything else.
On the spindle end, would substitution of 1932 spindles be appropriate for what you are doing? Those use bolt-in balls and would be easy to convert.
I think it is laughably unlikely that a '32 would fit into a '30-31 box, in fact the different ratio would seem to preclude any hope at all, but I'd look at one anyway; I would want to see if the square A end has enough meat to be rounded and splined for a '32 pitman...a '32 pitman, not '33-4, has a hole like '32 spindles, so the '32 and the same-spline '35-48 types could all take modern ends. I've never put any of this stuff side by side...
Another arm to look at: Early Econoline Ford. My memory is that it has an arm similar to F-100 but smaller, so maybe its square might miraculously be adaptable to Model A steering.
 
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