How bad is a manual steering box? (87 GMC SWB 2WD)

[sfriesen]

Here's the deal. At the moment I've got a stock power box on my 87 and I'm just strong arming it when I drive it (not very often anyhow). I've looked into some remote mount reservoir systems but the problem is that they all mount the pump on the drivers side of the engine, which makes great sense, except for the fact that my alternator is mounted low on that side. I'd really rather not change my wiring harness around and buy new alternator bracketry and pulleys to move it over to the passenger side to fit a new pump in there too. How much better is a manual box going to steer vs. my power box with a crossover hose between the two inlets? Driving around town isn't terrible, but when it goes to the track I want to have a little more control of the truck if I need to steer out of something.

Again, power steering would be grand for driving ease, but I drive this maybe once every couple of weeks, so I'm not that worried about comfort. If a manual box will make the job significantly easier than what I've got on it now, that'd be ok until I decide it's time to go to a rack up front.

thanks in advance. Non-power Power steering sucks monkey @ss.

[bmchevy1979]

In my opinion I don't think power steering is all that important My blazer has never had working power steering and I am not sure if I am going to put it back in or not your truck being a 2wd I wouldn't worry about having power steering but that is me

[pig rig]

its been a long time sents I had manual steering but the one thing I remember was how hard it was to turn when setting still or moving real slow and you had to work a little more to throw it into a tight corner. and a power steering box with no pump hooked up to it was even harder. but now I'm an old pu$$ and Im hunting down everthing to put ps on my 88 toyota pu

[lilpoindexter]

My '78 has manual steering, and it really SUCKS. I'm another one of those chumps looking endlessly in the junkyards for the elusive straight 6 ps brackets that fit my year.I got used to the manual brakes pretty quickly, but the manual steering doesn't ever get better. I thought at first it was kind of kool, because it's like working out at the gym, but it really makes driving the thing un-enjoyable.

[D13]

A manual box will be significantly easier. BTDT. it still will be very hard to turn sitting still on concrete.

What motor do you have? It can't be factory with the alt low on DS. If it's an L6 the brackets are available, the PS mounts above the alternator. If it's an early SBC, ditto. If you've got a later or aftermarket package with a low mount generator, then there should be a PS bracket that matches. Or bite the bullet and put a complete accessory package on that fixes your problem (but will probably put the alt back on the passenger side).