VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 54 Power Steering Question

Hello Everyone,
Some of you may know that my father who was also a VCCA member passed away this summer (my reason for not being able to attend Flint) He owned a 54 Belair four door sedan that I gave to my oldest son John III.
The car has factory power steering and what bothers us is that the pump shaft is real close to the radiator, about an 1/8" between the pully nut and the core. Is this normal? I can't seem to find any factory photos to refer to.

john my 54 with factory power steering clearance is about 3/4 inch . dont see how it could be any closer and the belts line up . the vickers vt 16 steering pump may have been changed some where along the line . hope this helps

It is the stock pump and all of the pullys line up, it is almost like the drive train is too far forward but with torque tube that is not really possible.

I do know the history. The car was restored many years ago..... mid 80's. It was purchased by another member in local VCCA region who had passed some time ago, prior to his passing he had sold the car. My father although living in Florida remained a member of one of the AACA Region's here in New York and saw it for sale in the newsletter. I looked at the car, and off it went to Florida. He did mention to me many times that he was concerned that everything was too close, but joked and said the next owner will have to deal with it.... so here we are.....

I am wondering if the radiator is the issue and that is not installed in the correct location? I do have a 53 and another 54 that he owned but they are in Florida. I have to see where the 5/8" of an inch got lost.

I put a new radiator into a freshly restored, dark blue '54 I owned back in 1988 and afterwards I was unable to install the radiator fan onto the water pump--the new radiator was that close. I just ran it without a fan for two years until the vehicle got stolen and then I never saw it again!

That said, I have a complete early '53 P.S. system installed on my '53 210, and it has more than 1/2 inch clearance between the end of the shaft and the radiator.

Clearly something got changed, but as to exactly what, you'll have to do some investigating.

Is the engine an original '54 235? Or a later 235?
Has the radiator been changed? Or has it been moved?

As I recall there aren't many things that could change the geometry of the end of the P.S. pump shaft. The P.S. brackets are 1/4" steel and they are very stout, and bolted securely to the front head bolt, the front intake bolt, and a water pump bolt. The P.S. pump housing is bolted to the rear face of that bracket. It's physically impossible to bolt it to the wrong side of the bracket. You could move the pulley a little forward, by fabricating and installing some washer-like shims between the bearing and the pulley--I did that once to correct a pulley problem--but even if you did that, the end of the shaft would still be in the same position.

I vote for a radiator change causing this problem. How much room do you have between the radiator and the fan? Is the fan a stock '54-'54 fan?

Here's a picture of the front of the pulley shaft on my 210. This shows how much space is normal. The black thing coming in from the left is the end of a small flashlight to give some light for the picture.