The more that Randy and I find out about that Flaming River T-Bucket Reversed Corvair steering box, and the more measurements we take, the better it sounds.
Here is a photo of it from the Flaming River website:
http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh16/JimGnitecki/Steeringbox-FlamingRiverT-Bucket.jpgThis box is a funny 3D shape of course, but the baseplate is only a little over 4 inches long, and the maximum width anywhere is 4 inches. It uses needle bearings and is made of steel, not alloy. The ratio is 20-1, which is acceptably close to Red's stock 26 to 1, and very workable thanks to both the needle bearing action of this box and the aftermarket tapered needle bearings in Red's front end.
The box could sit in almost exactly the same spot as the stock one, but would need a piece of simple angle iron bolted to the left side of the frame rail (no welding into the frame), so that it can sit just a bit further left than the stock box, to clear the exhaust manifold. Two of its mounting bolts would go into the angle iron, and one into the original truck frame.
Because the box is so small, we could actually move the engine a tad forward or backward (engine mount holes not yet drilled), so that the box's rightmost projection goes into an area where the exhaust manifold is "recessed" a bit.
The box is actually small enough that it would be entirely BELOW the sparkplugs.
Randy pointed out that the Pitman arm shaft would be at almost precisely the same point in 3D space as the factory box, and of course Flaming River offers Pitman arms too.
Randy thinks this solution is way nicer than the 60s-70s GM van box.
On the strength of all this, I ordered one of these Flaming River boxes to trial fit. I can return it if it does not fit well.
Jim G
