The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The HiPo Shop power steering bracket on 216

Hi all,

I have looked to no avail for someone who makes a power steering bracket for my 1949 216. The brackets I have seen are for the newer six and don't seem to be designed for my application. I have purchased a steering box from u-pull-apart and will get the pump. Just need the pump mounting bracket??? Can you help???

There is no company that makes power steering brackets for these older inline 6's (216, 235, 261) at least that ive seen. More than likely you will have to design and make your own bracket. That's what I'm doing for my 54 235. Im making a bracket to move the alternator to the passenger side and then making another bracket to mount a GM, Dodge or Ford pump where the alt/gen use to be. I was going to try to make both fit on the driver side but it would have been a bit tight as I have a 4bbl intake and dual tube style exhaust headers. Putting the alternator on the passenger side just cleans and unclutters it up. I drew my plans up on AutoCad and then sending them to be water or laser cut out.

What steering setup are you using (box manufacture, ie GM, Toyota, etc) and what pump are you planning to use.

At first I was going to be using a toyota box with a toyota pump so there wasn't a chance to have pressure differences, but have now decided to go with a late gm p/s box that mounts on the outside of the frame towards the front. Im looking at using a Dodge pump as the way it mounts and the location of the mounting holes looks like it will be the easiest to design a bracket for.

I should mention there were factory power steering setups but it involved a pump that piggy backed off the generator output shaft. Ive heard there was another factory setup that had a standalone pump that ran off the belt, but those, like the generator mounted pump are getting very hard to find. As well as the standalone unit would need to be modified to fit a different pump.


One there option, if you have a generator yet, is a bracket that mounts to the generator and would run off a second groove on the generators pulley. Its a design by a fellow stovebolter on here. Check out the following link and go down to the post be Grigg. He came up with a pretty neat setup that is a very good option for those running a generator.
https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthread...g&topic=0&Search=true#Post451307

also another good link
https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthread...ota&topic=0&Search=true#Post7895

as mentioned in the above link, there is a pump found in a few vehicles that runs off a 12volt electric motor. This option would be great if you could actually find one of these pumps as it can be mounted anywhere and frees up the engine as a belt driven power steering pump robs the engine slightly of power (thats why many newer cars are switching to electric (mechanical and hydro-electric)).

Chris, while the electically driven pumps do solve some problems, I won't buy that they actually save power. You are still using the alternator to generate the power used to turn that pump, and the losses in generating and storing the power mean this approach is going to use more power.

I don't know, that's just what I've heard. The way I see it is that the alternator is always turning, the regulator just controls what it is putting out. The main idea is that not having a belt/mechanically driven pump means 1 less item creating friction. Not that I believe the pump puts that much drag on the engine, the difference is very little, if at all. The main advantage to using a hydro-electric pump would be that there would be no need to find/buy a dual groove crank pulley and no need to fabricate brackets to mount a belt driven pump to the engine.