What happens if I use the longer (5.75" center of hole to center of stud) pitman arm to replace a current 5.25" one on a '69 Firebird? It seems they made different lengths for different ratio power steering boxes.
I thought that there were only 2 myself, one for the power steering boxes and 1 for the manual gear boxes. My Classic Industries catalog says that there is only one power steering pitman arm. I was wrong about there being only 2, seems that there are a few for the manual boxes.
I went out to my 68 and measured my pitman arm. It comes out at approximately 5-1/4" center to center. Hope it helps.
...Ron
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68'RS Camaro 88'Formula 00'GT MustangSorry, I read the post wrong. Maybe I'll get it right one of these days.
...Ron
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68'RS Camaro 88'Formula 00'GT MustangI believe you would need to match the idler arm up with it or the wheels will point different directions in a turn....
Mike
86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >
Erratic handling due to bump steer, BAD idea. Not as bad if you changed the idler arm also. Why do you want to do this? If you are looking to quicken your steering you may be able to use a quicker box. There were several different ratios.
Don
Thanks, guys. This is just a replacement for an extremely sloppy, worn pitman arm. An outfit sent me the longer one (the only one they sell; a reproduction) after I asked them to measure it and they told me
5.25". They must have measured stud center to hole edge instead of hole center. I was trying to save the hassle of sending it back. It's going back because of the warnings from you guys. I just ordered a Moog K6151 pitman arm from Summit after Moog confirmed it was 5.25" long. The Summit catalog, though, shows this as fitting 5 vehicles, none of them a '69 Firebird V-8 with power steering. I've found nobody with a pitman arm listing for this car, and I've checked more than a few. I was even told that the reason for this is that '69 Firebirds used a pitman arm with no ball joint on it (thus it's a non-wearing part) and a center link with the ball on it instead. (The one I'm working on is not such an oddball.) I came to the conclusion the Moog K6151 matches my old one after reading the extensive webpageThanks again.
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