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Anyone regret adding power steering?

P

Patrick Reynolds

New Member
I have a early CJ5 that is used for back road cruising and will slowing be phased in as my wheeling jeep to replace my Cherokee. Currently it has the stock ross box/bell crank steering that has a lot of slop, it can make it a little sketchy on the road. I have decided to swap to a saginaw steering box but I am not 100% sure if i want to go with power steering or not. Aside from all the slop, the jeep is easy to drive, I don't think I have ever once thought that i needed power steering for the road. My time with the jeep offroad is limited, but usually for wheeling I like rocks and technical trails where I think I would benefit from having the power steering. I still want to drive it on the road, I am afraid the power steering may make it to twitchy especially with the stock steering wheel. The jeep has the 4cyl f-head which I have heard may not be the best to put a power steering pulling on however, I do have a Volvo electric power steering pump that I would try to use.

Maybe I am overthinking it but, is there anyone out there that has gone with power steering and ended up regretting it?
 
I have Saginaw power in 3 jeeps. Don't regret it at all. I mostly did it for technical trails, but it's nice anywhere. As stated, you need a 4+ turn box, and the big steering wheel keeps it slow enough to not get too twitchy. It's a project, but If you're a fabricator, not too hard.
 
Matching the pump to the box is important. My first attempt was a willy nilly random pump and box out of who knows what?! While it worked, it was like a video game with no 'feel'. A few years later, I replaced the pump and box with matched NAPA remanufactured components for a '79 CJ5. This is a 3-turn arrangement that works great. This was an incredible difference! I now have road feel and predictable response at all road speeds and engine RPM.
I am now trying out smaller steering wheels to fit my driving position better.
 
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I am sure others will not agree with this, but in my opinion, power steering is not worth the trouble to install on a CJ5 with the F-134. The only reason I can think of for it would be for a Jeep that is going to be a serious rock crawler.

Manual Saginaw steering on a Jeep is a vast improvement over the Ross system, especially if you use a two hole knuckle and a single tie rod.

I have a 48 CJ2A which is a serious trail Jeep. It came to me with power steering.

I had this Jeep loaded on the trailer ready to go to Colorado last Fall when the trip was canceled due to a death in the family. So, I unloaded the Jeep from the trailer down at my barn and started driving the Jeep back up the hill to put it back in the garage. Going up the hill the power steering box blew the spool valve and forced a hard turn left, jerking the steering wheel out of my hand. I was lucky it happened where it did because I just went into an open field, but I shudder to think of this happening on a shelf road along a steep ridge, or worse while driving down the hwy at 60 MPH.

Had I made that trip to Colorado I would have been busy setting up camp on Saturday, busy cooking cobblers for 100 people Sunday, and would not have drove the Jeep until we headed out for a trail on Monday. At best I would have been stuck out there with a Jeep that would only go in circles, at worst I would have had a spectacular roll over on the hwy heading out to the trail.

After that experience, I decided I never want power steering in one of my Jeeps because I would always worry about that happening again.

I converted it to a manual Saginaw out of a 73 CJ5, which has the perfect ratio for a Jeep. It has a two hole knuckle with gives more leverage, and it steers so easy it is close to having power. I feel a lot safer with this, the steering returns to center well, is very stable, and has good road feel.

This Jeep has about 4" lift, so I had to tweak toe in adjustment, and increase positive caster to get it to drive the way I wanted, and I am very pleased with the result.
 
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I'm not using a saggy, I have a boosted Ross system but my only major peeve is a loss of centering & road feel on the highway. I do have a two hole knuckle that is on the project list this winter to be swapped back to a single hole setup as I find I'm cranking the steering wheel too many times for the turns I'm getting.
 
Poor centering and & lack of "road feel" indicates an alignment issue, which I just edited my previous post to mention how I improved both on mine.

Not sure how changing back to a single hole knuckle will help those issues, though the shorter throw might help with the number of turns to stop.

Don't know if your Jeep has been lifted or not, but that changes a lot in the steering geometry.

As I said mine is lifted, and I first started out with 1/4" toe in because that was what it was set to before I converted from power to manual. Steering was very light and loose feeling, centering was nil, and I had my first experience with the dreaded "Death Wobble". I adjusted to 1/8" and that improved it some, and got rid of the death wobble, but it was still a bit too light and loose to feel comfortable at road speed. Next I adjusted to 1/16" toe in, and that was much better stability, but still not great, still too light and loose. It had 4* shims with wedge to rear, this reduces positive caster by 4*. I assume this was done to set pinion angle, while sacrificing caster. Caster sits at 3* with this setup. I decided to try some 2* shims next. I don't think this will cause any problem with pinion angle on a front axle, but it does make the Jeep steer better which is more important to me.
 
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I edited my last post because what I cut and pasted from something I previously wrote up was from before I made adjustments to caster. When there is not enough positive caster steering stability will suffer. Adding only 2* to positive caster made a big improvement.
 
Oldpappy said:
edited my last post because what I cut and pasted from something I previously wrote up was from before I made adjustments to caster. When there is not enough positive caster steering stability will suffer. Adding only 2* to positive caster made a big improvement.
Click to expand...
Not lifted. Toe in is set to spec. No wobblies.

I've tried going to 4° shims, no major difference.

Then I tried them installed not backwards, a little better.

I then went to 6° shims, a little bit more better.

I've got a set of 8°'s on the shelf but I'm holding off on those until I get the single hole knuckle & see how that works (in addition to reducing wheel turns).

We now return the the regularly scheduled OP's questions.
 
No regrets here.
The only reason I would not add power steering is if I’d want to retain the primitive tractor feel, and that just feels like self-punishment at this point in my life.

I will say this, adding a pump to a 134 isn’t a cake walk. The front of that engine wasn’t exactly built to easily accommodate accessories, but it’s entirely possible.

As far as the electric steering goes, there’s no free lunch. The hp drain will be transferred to your alternator rather than the PS pump.
 
Thanks for the replies, definitely some things to think about. I love this jeep for what it is and i love the simplicity of it but i plan on a front locker down the road and larger tires, not sure I would enjoy the manual steering in the rocks at that point. I hadn't heard of the two hole knuckles so that gives me something else to look for. To simplify the project I was thinking of getting the swap kit from advanced adapters. Maybe I can run a manual box to start and as upgrade as needed?
 
Comment - the manual steering is slower (more turns L2L) for the mechanical advantage at low speed.
The bus wheel is large for this reason too.
Power steering gears have different turns L2L - fewer is "sporty" maybe not what you want for a Jeep.
I hear that the gear from a 4x4 S10/Blazer/Jimmy/Bravada has more turns L2L than its 2x4 counterpart (popular choice for Wagoneers and such).

In the era when I worked at a dealership, power steering was a factory option.
Very popular, maybe second to LSD or the Suburbanite tires or replace 232 with 258.
The only Jeeps that came through without it were the stripped-down versions for fleet use, or maybe an occasional price-leader for the lot.
Note the Saginaw manual steering introduced for 1972 was a great improvement over the earlier Ross steering.
No complaints about either that I recall.
 
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Manual Saginaw steering was the first modification I did to my Jeep in/around 1976.
My Jeep had an F4 at the time.
Power steering was discouraged due to lack of feel in the steering wheel, especially when in the rocks.
The potential for damaged steering components with this loss of feel seemed magnified.
Many a Jeeper suffered bent tie rods or drag links while turning the steering wheel while one or both front tires were up against rocks.
Saw this happen many times.
I continued along with manual Saginaw even after the V6 install in 1983.
Fast forward to 2010 or so....
I installed power Saginaw on the Jeep.
I would never go back to manual.
The power steering gear on my Jeep is a 3 bolt mounting unit from a 1973 Jeep Wagoneer if it matters.
My steering column/steering wheel mainly consists of modified 72-75 CJ5 components, shafts etc.
 
I've had a number of different steering setups on my CJ5. It was 100% stock Ross when I first put it together. I'll go against populart opinion & say that the stock setup is OK for a stock Jeep (no lift/stock size tires) as long as everything is in good condition. The 1st change I made was simply a 1 piece tie rod. This is a good upgrade for any Jeep, why Jeep engineers used a Y shaped tie rod on a straight axle is beyond me. After a lift and bigger tires, the Ross box became a struggle, so I converted to manual Saginaw using an intermediate CJ box. My Jeep drove really good this way, on the street. The problem I had was tremendous kick back off road. Driving on a rocky trail my steering wheel would spin back & forth wildly! Finally I got a PS setup for it. It's awesome off road, not only did it eliminate the kick back, butI have much greater maneuverability due to being able to turn the wheels faster. The downside is mine is really over-boosted. If you've ever driven a 60's Chrysler, it's like that. I can literally turn the wheels with 1 finger near the center of the steering wheel. This makes it pretty twitchy at highway speed. This may be a result of mismatched steering components as mentioned in post #5 above. Overall I'm glad I installed PS, but it's not perfect.
 
I went with manual Saginaw. I'm a bit of a tight @$$ with limited garage time.
The manual boxes are getting harder to find.

I would like to eventually go with power steering then I can use the steering pump to also power my snowplow.
 
I ran manual Saginaw steering with a V6 with both 31" and 33" tires for many years, with both an open front diff and a TrueTrac. I never felt the need to go to power steering up until a year or so ago. In some of the tight, technical rocks, it can be a bit of a chore with manual, but when I put an Eaton E-Locker in the front, that was the final nail in the coffin for the manual steering. Driving around town and light to moderate wheeling was fine with manual steering, but when the rock gardens and front locker came around, power was needed for a more enjoyable experience. I haven't regretted going to power so far (had it about a year now).
 
All my early wheeling was f heads and Ross boxes until the 68 at least eliminated the former. Yes, the Ross box sort of works but is a lot of effort in the rocks and road feel is best determined by a pair of border collies. Manual Saginaw is much more precise but, excuse the pun, quite a handful in the rocks with some extreme feedback potential. The Saginaw 500 Corvette box I installed in the 3B a half century back still resides in the 3B with the old style assist cylinder power steering (with a few modifications). That box is 3.5 turns lock to lock and I have always loved it. Whether North Meadow rocks or 100 mph on the pavement, works great.

As for blown spools, mismatched pumps, and bent tie rods, man up folks. No reason for any of that nonsense.
 
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