From what I understand a mid 70's Ford pick-up steering box works good for converting a Scout 800 to power steering. All these box's are set to the inside of the frame. I spent some quality time crawling around the junkyard today in 104 degree heat only to find that the pitman arms on these units are pointing in the wrong direction. I need one that points to the rear and the Fords are pointing to the front. Is the Ford pitman arm keyed so it only goes on one way or is it not keyed so I can point the pitman in any direction? Thanks

Any power steering box from a 77.5 to 79 F-250/350 4x4 would work. The pitman arms are placed pointing out towards the tire, but are keyed with 4 large flats every 45 degrees. So, just take the pitman arm off and put it back on pointing towards the rear.

I ended up using a 2X4 box out of a mid 70's rig. It's keyed in the 4 places like you stated. Question now is what other pitman arms are keyed like this in case I need a longer/shorter one. Thanks

Any power steering box from a 77.5 to 79 F-250/350 4x4 would work. The pitman arms are placed pointing out towards the tire, but are keyed with 4 large flats every 45 degrees. So, just take the pitman arm off and put it back on pointing towards the rear.Ah, just think about what you just said, by taking the arm off and turning it 180* you'd be steering opposite of your intended direction :shaking: ........Hans

I thought the ford 2wd f150 box would work. someone correct me if I am wrong

Oatmeal, you are correct about the 180 degrees, and I was wrong about the 45 degrees, I should have said 90 degrees. So, with that correction, if you place the pitman arm towards the rear, you will be turning the pitman arm to the right when you make a right hand turn. This is the same for the 2x4 boxes. If you use a 4x4 box off of a 1/2 ton, then it would be messed up seeing as how the pitman arm is facing the front (right hand turn makes the pitman arm trun left).:cool2:

As far as other pitman arms go, I have found that mid 70's 2x4 and 4x4 pitman arms are the same ID and spline.

On the late 70's 4x4 boxes, you can swap out the worm gear to make it turn the other direction. That's a popular swap for the early Broncos

http://www.bcbroncos.com/techtips1.html

http://www.bcbroncos.com/powersteering3.gif

The install has been completed for a few months now and works great. I'm writing a tech article on this conversion for my club and I need to know what years of Ford boxes will work. Like I said, I'm using a 76 Ford F250 2X4 box that is mounted to the inside of the frame. What years and models used this same style box? Thanks

All 1/2, 3/4, and 1 ton 2wd steering boxes are the same from 67-79- this is also a fairly common box to swap into early Broncos too.