Car Craft – November 2019

40 CAR CRAFT NOVEMBER 2019

I

f you’ve ever driven an early Ford

Mustang, you know the factory

steering system leaves a lot to be

desired. Not only are they prone to slop

in the gearbox, but the factory geome-

try comes with a lot of bumpsteer. (If

you have ever hit a bump in the road

and had to grab the wheel to keep the

car in a straight line, that is bumpsteer.)

While all cars can have some bump-

steer, the Mustang’s is really bad. There

are options for correcting this issue,

and you can always replace the gear-

box with a rebuilt unit, but that still

leaves you back at the beginning with

a marginal steering system that

doesn’t work very well. Add power

steering, and you get a leaky system

that was practically obsolete before it

even went into production.

We’re going to fix that by converting

the Mustang to a Steeroids rack-and-

pinion system from Speed Direct

($1,817.95; PN 84525). This kit uses a

GM center take-off rack that does not

need any redesign or special pumps

like those required by Mustang II racks

or end take-off racks. “Center take-off”

means the tie rods come off the center

of the rack unit, as opposed to coming

out the sides—leading to better overall

geometry for conversions and a car

that will track true without any funky

driving characteristics. We have a

power kit, but it can be run in manual

form by simply emptying the fluid from

the rack and plugging the ports. No

damage is done to the internals, and

power can be added at any time.

The kit comes with the rack, brack-

ets, tie-rod ends (Heim-joint style),

hoses for power steering, and steering

linkages for either an aftermarket col-

umn or the factory column. If you want

to use the factory column, you can, but

it requires cutting the column to length

and machining the end to fit into a^3 ⁄ 4

DD U-joint. An aftermarket column is

much easier, with less risk of making a

mistake that could create a dangerous

situation. We opted for an ididit col-

umn, which is custom-built by ididit for

the Steeroids kit. This has the side ben-

efit of adding tilt to the column, which

➔PROJECT CAR

By Jefferson Bryant / Photos: Jefferson Bryant and Jason Bryant

PROJECT MUSTANG,

PART 2

The Father-and-Son ’69 Mustang Gets Vastly Improved

Steering From a Rack-and-Pinion Conversion