This is for those of you who have manual steering cars. How does it compare to power? Keeping the size of a 70 in mind, is it hard to steer?

I have a '68 SS396 with manual steering. Difficult to steer at anything below 5 mph. I would covert to P/S, but the '68 parrts are expensive and hard to find. Having my alignment guru add a bunch of caster and sticking with a 225/70/15 (tall/skinny) tire helps too. I would stick with P/S if I were you.

I'm the opposite. I always use manual steering in my cars. it is a bit more difficult at low speeds, mostly parking. But i prefer the manual in a limited use street/race car. also I use thinner front tires.

I have manual steering in my velle. It gives me much better feel for the road. Not to mention that I don't oversteer in a quick reaction situation, which seems to happen a lot here with so many crazy drivers. (For those who have been to NO, you know what I mean) The real problem is parking, especially parallel, which, unfortunately, I have to do a lot of in the city. Overall, I like the manual, but I would convert to p/s if it were much cheaper. my .02 graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Currently, there is NO suspension in mine, so conversion isn't an issue- it's whatever I put on it. This will be a "limited use" car, as I am also restoring a 68 Nova. I thought of making one power and one manual, but at this point, anything is possible. Thanks for the replies.

I had power steering in my 65 Chevelle and converted to manual. I prefer manual, because the steering wheel tends to center itself better than the power steering setup. Neither one of them come close to the power steering on my 96 Impala. It requires a little more effort than the Chevelle power steering, but is a much quicker ratio and centers itself when you let go.

I've been thinking about this alot lately.

My 68 SS-396, has the wrong power steering, 69 and later style. I've got a rebuilt quick ratio power box. (On the shelf for years now)

I had a 68 in college that we took the small block out of, and put in a big block.
I didn't get the P.S. brakets, so I just let it off.
People told me a power box with out the pump was 1 1/2 times as hard as a manual box.

I never had any problem, and was thinking now, that if I got a manual box,
I'd lose front end weight,
Free up horse power,
Maybe gain some road feel,
and make my car look a little more correct.

Resale is hopefully never gonna be an issue.

I have a 69 chevelle that I would like to install manual on- does anyone know what manual boxes (both old & late model) would be a direct swap. Suspension parts would not be an issue as I need to redo at this point .


Thanks Randy

Hard to steer? Depends on your point of view. Harder than with PS for sure. My '65 EC has manual steer and I never considered how hard the steering was until I got a couple of power-steering full-sized 60's/70's american sedans. They steered easy, but not much "road feel". Easy to overcorrect in a panic situation (every human animal will panic if pushed hard enough). Also easy to scruboff rubber from tires. I bought a PS setup for my '65 that is awaiting some time to do it (i've become older, fatter, and increasingly lazy). We had a '47, a '53, and a '57 Plymouth; none with PS, Mom never weighed over 105 lb., but I never heard her complain: "it's so hard to steer..." she just drove the cars. More people are rather soft nowadays.

My $0.02