wow, hadn't read this thread for awhile and them I see these....brings back some memories (nightmares lol) of NAVAIR...(still have a couple of sets of them in the toolbox..)
there was some discussion of the PS delete on FB awhile back and people acting like you can't drive like that, lol told em my '51 F1 drives just fine without PS and weighs a helluva a lot more than a MINI..glad to see you're still running it
Hey everybody, I'm digging this thread up from the depths having found it via a Google search. Does anyone have any experience with a manual steering converted car with narrow tires? Something in the 175 to 195mm wide range. I found a mini locally for cheap that needs a PS pump and I'm kind of thinking I'd just drop this re-circulation kit into it to eliminate the problem. It's got R81 aka 7-hole rims on it, so the tires are pretty narrow.
195 is the standard width tire for an R50. I’m not planning on running anything wider. Wider tires increase the steering effort required and we’ve heard from a few people in thia thread who have found the steering to be quite heavy with 215 or 225 width summer tires. I wonder if the effort is still high with factory width tires?
All I have to say about this is when my MINI's alternator died the power steering died due to lack of volts. The car was damn near undriveable. I can't imagine wanting to do this & ditch the P/S. My tires were 205-50-16, not very wide.
IIRC the oem tire size on the Cooper was 175 width.
I have one of these for my car and it has been sitting in my toolbox for years because I don’t want to install it now. I did at one time and the price was cheap so I ordered one.
The power steering delete is not as hard to turn the car with a power steering failure because of pump or alternator failure. The fluid is still in the rack and you can turn the car much easier then a car with a failed pump.
