I want to thank everyone that responded to my earlier inquiry about Gemmer
steering box conversions. All of the responses were positive, and I can see
why. To those of you who asked me to post the results of my conversion,
sounds kind of religious doesn't it, read on.
I took the plunge last week. Well actually I plunged into the conversion
with one of Morgan Spares, (888/345.6647) long column Gemmer boxes and let
Toby and Patrick at Greg Solo's Engine Room, (831/429.1800) do the actual
swimming. They did a great job. You can't tell that the car has an updated
Gemmer box unless you crawl under and look.
How does it feel? Fantastic! The steering is extremely accurate. No lost
movement and a more positive "feel" to all steering input at any speed. The
ratio of the Gemmer box is the same as the old cam & peg system, but it
feels much quicker. In addition, the new steering is significantly lighter
at parking speeds. Further, the binding feeling associated with the old
system is gone and the smooth response of the new system is a nice bonus.
I had the old cam & peg box rebuilt with a NOS cam two years ago and was
never happy with the results. (Mind you I never really liked the sloppy
feel of the original box to begin with. I like to steer my car instead of
kind of guiding it around the corners.) The rebuilt box needed adjustment
every 1,500 to 2,000 miles to keep on-center free play to a minimum. Not
the sort of thing I like.
How long does this take you ask. Not as log as you might think. My took
less than a day for the Engine Room wizards.
So in my opinion, if your in the market for a new steering box call Linda at
Morgan Spares and order up their conversion and book a short stay with Toby
and Patrick at Solo's Engine Room. You won't be disappointed.
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