Ford is upside down

jbc

jbc

Senior Member
My 40 Ford steering wheel is 3 turns from stop to stop. If I center the steering wheel 1.5 and 1.5 turns, my horn botton with Ford stripped is upside down. If I adjust the pitman shaft I can jet Ford upright, but leaves me with 2 turns one way and 1 turn the other way. The car has a droped axle with after market steerings arms. The backing plates hit a fixed stop on each end of the axle when fully turns each way. Has any one had this problum?
Thanks
John Chandler
352 208 6359
 
The dropped steering arms effectively necessitated a longer drag link length. Adjust, if there are enough threads to do so safely, or make a longer drag link. DD
 
Disconnect the steering from the pitman arm (or the steering arm, whichever is easiest). Turn the steering box from lock to lock and count the turns. wind it back exactly half way and the pitman arm should be pointing exactly straight forward. At this point, hopefully your steering wheel should be straight and your ford badge should be the right way up. If it isn't you need to investigate why not. Is the steering wheel the right one? Has anyone cut and welded the shaft?

The bottom line is that your steering box should be in the straight ahead position and the wheels straight, and the drag link adjusted to fit without moving either the wheels or the steering box. If you don't do it this way, the sweet spot on the box will not be aligned to the straight ahead position of the wheels.

You then need to do whatever is necessary to get the steering wheel and badge straight.

I can talk a good game, but I did drive my 40 with the badge upside down all the time I had it, but the alignment of the box to the wheels was correct.

Mart.
 
Truck and car are different . Where is the wood-riff key on the shaft when the wheel is centered ?? Is it at the top of the shaft or bottom ??
 
Compare your horn button to an original. Over 5 years ago there were some repop 40 DLX buttons made by Carpenter (and shipped all over the country) that were embossed UPSIDE DOWN. Ask me (or several friends) how we know!! If you left the tie rod alignment where it should be with pitman arm centered, the button was upside down. Because the button mounted with 3 tabs spaced at 120 degrees apart you ended up with it installed 180 degrees off (upside down) or 60 degrees off (slanted). I still see lots of them. One fellow I know changed the length of tie rods to get the button lettering level (had to turn shaft a half turn) therefore the steering stop at kingpin wasn't realized and worm turned sector past design criterion. It was a real screwed up solution for a screwed up repop piece that should have never been sold! Had lot's of arguments over that one! Never got a refund either. Thanks!
 
Forgot to mention----the original design has 3 mounting tabs on back side. The button should have one tab at top (12 oclock) and other 2 should be at 4 and 8 o'clock. All 40 buttons, no matter car or truck and regardless of logo design or color should be this way.
 
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