Rack 'Em Up! - A Classic Ford Upgrade With TCP's Rack-And-Pinion Steering Installation

The TCP rack kit includes the necessary parts to modify your steering column to work with the new rack (or you can purchase an aftermarket tilt column). Remove the horn button or center cap of your wheel and then remove the wheel's retaining nut so that a proper steering wheel puller can be utilized to remove the wheel, as shown here.

Disconnect the turn signal harness and unbolt the column tube's retaining clamp at the base of the dash. Due to age, the column tube might be a bit stuck on the dash base or even the steering gearbox itself, but with a little pulling and twisting you'll get the column tube free of its grip on the car, and then it can be removed from the steering shaft.

There are some modifications that need to be done to the column tube, but we're going to finish pulling all of the old parts off of our Mustang first. Next to get the heave-ho is the complete steering linkage and non-integral power steering setup. Remove the cotter pins and castle nuts at the outer tie-rod ends, the ball stud at the pitman arm, and unbolt the idler arm from the right front framerail. Since we're not reusing these parts, a simple pickle fork and hammer will get everything separated and removed.

Of course the steering gearbox will be joining the other old parts in the scrap pile as well. Remove the three bolts retaining the gearbox to the left front framerail and carefully snake the box down out of the car. Having someone inside to guide the shaft out helps prevent any damage to the dash. The driver-side exhaust usually has to be removed for access as well.

Lastly, the tubular number two crossmember is unbolted from the car, as the new TCP rack bolts to the Mustang in place of said crossmember.

As noted earlier, the stock column requires some modifications to work with the TCP rack setup. For '65 through early '67 Mustangs that use the long shaft steering box, the column tube itself needs to be shortened to 295/16 inches. This can be accomplished with a bandsaw (as seen here) or even with a hacksaw or cut-off wheel. For the latter two, use a hose clamp as a cutting guide.

Once you've made the cut to the column tube, slide the new steering shaft into the column and slip the supplied lower bearing retainer over it. The firewall support clamp is slipped onto the column tube and aligned with the mounting bracket tab's slot and wiring harness opening.

The new steering shaft features a double-D 3/4-inch end that accepts a "DD" universal joint. The groove just above this area gets a small snap-ring retainer installed. This prevents the shaft from pulling up through the column tube when the steering wheel is reinstalled.

Reinstall the original upper bearing support, spring, and steering wheel on the column shaft and secure with the original steering wheel nut. This puts tension on the steering shaft so the bearing retainer can be secured by drilling three 9/64-inch holes and adding the three supplied screws. After drilling the holes, it is recommended to disassemble the column and vacuum or blow out any metal shavings from drilling the three holes and then reassemble.

Installing the modified column back in the car is a simple process. First, mount the column support bracket on the firewall and slide the column through the firewall. Secure the floor mounting ring loosely to the firewall bracket and then secure the original under dash bracket to the dash. Finally, go back and tighten the set screws on the column support and reconnect all column wiring.

Moving on to the rack install, we first replace the original lower control arm bolts with the kit-supplied longer grade-8 hardware. The easiest way to do this is to carefully drive out the old bolts with the new bolts using a small plastic face or non-marring mallet. This will keep the lower control arm from shifting.

The reason the longer bolts are used is to give a place for the inner rack brackets to mount to. The driver-side bracket is shown installed here. The brackets are slotted to allow adjustment of the rack.

The outer rack brackets will bolt to the original tubular crossmember mounting holes. Shims are supplied (if needed) to adjust the rack here as well. The driver-side bracket is actually integral to the rack housing and is seen being loosely installed here.

With the driver-side bracket loosely installed, the outer clamp halves are installed and tightened in gradual steps to secure the rack. Finally, the remaining bracket hardware is tightened to finalize the rack installation. The original or new tie-rod ends can be installed at this time, but we're holding off since new suspension will be joining this project shortly.

TCP supplies the correct universal joints for the column and rack fittings, as well as a length of DD shaft. The shaft length is measured per the included instructions and installed with the joints. Be sure to follow all directions for securing the joint's set screws. While there are no headers on this engine yet, you can see that the rack's pinion gear housing is very close to the framerail, offering the most header clearance possible.