i am not sure what happened to all the posts here but i guess i will start a new one . i bought a TCP ( total control products )rack and pinion kit for my 1965 2 door hardtop.here is what came with the kit.

i did have to cut some holes in the frame to mount it in place.

here it is loosely mounted in place.

i had to cut the bottom of the steering column .

complete column with new lower bearing. the blue ring is where the lower part mounts at the firewall.

the new silver plate has to be shaped to the firewall.you can see how it is attached here. the upper part uses factory mounts.

here you see where the column comes through the firewall. the frame needs to be notched where the intermediate shaft goes.


here you can see the shaft clears the frame.

total control UCA's with the shelby drop, LCA's,strut rods and varishock coil overs.

they sure do a good job with the parts ...i bought a fatman frontend and believe me the kit didnt look any where near as nice...

Same set up I put in my 63. Went in really nice. I think the hardest part for me was clearancing the strut rod mount up front for the pivot body. I haven't put my rack in yet. Probably not for another year. I'd like to do the engine bay and put 2 extra cylinders in there at the same time I do the rack.

What brakes did you go with?
I went with the wilwood dynolite pro kit. it offset the track width 0.74 inch per side. I hear they have a new kit that doesn't do it as much and I will most likely change out the brakes at some point to make room for more wheel. This kit makes the wheel choices a bit finicky. Between the boxy upper control arms and the fender you start to run into some wheel option issues.

i have bought a complete set of granada brakes from the salvage yard.i was not planning on doing all this " high end " work to my car. when i bought the whole front suspension , tcp told me that granada brakes would have to much bump steer and i needed a 1971 mustang set up . so after some research i found this and it will be what i am going with.
swap 3 for $ 524.00 it has everything i need to do a complete disc brake set up ,less the hard lines.

http://www.discbrakeswap.com/parts/parts

What was the cost for the tcp RP setup? Did you look into the Unisteer RP setup?
http://www.unisteer.com/seach_by_vehicl ... black.html
or the JPL setup
http://cgi.ebay.ca/1960-61-62-63-64-65- ... 1c0540b742


I'm looking to make the change, just not sure how I want to go.

Unless you modify the steering arm, those racks do not offer the stock amount of travel. They use a j-car rack. Those racks have 6" of travel not 6.375 like a stock ford.

TCP is the only company that went out and designed a rack that would work. I have that in a drag 65 mustang. I am dissappointed to see the huge notch in the frame for the intermediate shaft. I wonder if that could have been avoided with an different modification.

i dont remember the exact price of the rack but it was around $1,700.
front coil over shocks... $ 879
upper control arms $ 659
lower control arms $ 549
strut rods $ 469
anti-roll bar $ 269

i also plan on getting the matching four link set up for the rear suspension. that is going to run around $1,800 to $2,000.

as soon as i sell my expedition . i will be getting that and front brakes.


it did not bother me to cut and reweld the frame for the intermediate shaft.

noackrite,

I really like this install. Do you have a picture of the frame after you welded in the patch, but before you put the steering linkage in? Now that it is all in, would you do anything different if you had to do it all over again?

i looked at all kind of rack and pinion conversion for my car. i liked the TCP one the best . it just seem to be of a better quality to me . i am not trying to knock any other company but i , i liked all of their products they offer and will be buying the rear 4 link from them also. i dont think there is anything i would have done differently during the install.it was pretty straight forward and if i did need any help all i did was call them and they asked what ever questions i had.
to see more pictures of the R & P install go to this link .

http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m157 ... ?start=440
this is in primer before final painting of the engine bay.