S10 Quick Steering Part 1: Finding a 12.7:1 Saginaw Steering Box
To really make a vehicle handle, quicker steering from lock to lock is essential. For vehicles that use a drag-link system with a Saginaw Power Steering Box with a 14.5:1 ratio (or more), you had few options that grows fewer as the usual boxes get picked up at the junk yards. Is there another solution without buying new? Yes and we’ll discuss it and your options for a quicker steering Saginaw Power Steering Box.
I recently bought a 1995 Chevrolet S10 Extra Cab for less than $1100 and said to myself, “I’m not going to do anything performance wise. Not at all.” That lasted all of about one-mile of driving it home and it was christened “Ron Burgundy” by off-road racer, Luke Johnson. It was decided to take and make this into a corner carving machine worthy of autocrosses and time attack. So, the first thing I decided I needed to replace was the steering box. At 3.5-turns lock-to-lock, that’s really not going to cut it when I need to dodge cones in the slalom.
Like many hot rodders, I looked to see what my options were and started to get a little dismayed. I would either have to try and find a steering box from an older Camaro/Firebird that locked at only 64 to 70-degrees (meaning I would need a new pitman arm) or buy new. I’m being a bit cheap here, so buying new wasn’t exactly on my mind and the idea of changing to a Camaro pitman arm wasn’t sitting too well only because I would also need a shorter idler arm. It also doesn’t help that other boxes that could work are getting rare and hard to find.
Turns out, though, there is another solution to my problem. The 1992 to 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee – it turns at a ratio of 12.7:1, faster than the 14.7:1 box of the ZQ8 suspension trucks and has no steering stops like the Camaro box does. The extra bonus was that it’s a direct bolt-in solution for my 1995 S10. Or it should be. I’m waiting on the box to arrive and when it does, I’ll detail the installation in the next article.