Greetings Slant Fans,

I have a question. I just spent a wonderful day in the local wrecking yard parting out "my" two D100/150's. I nabbed the entire power steering system off of one of these trucks to install in my 1982 D150. As I installed the power steering pump and its associated crank pulley I noticed that the Power Steering pump pulley doesn't quite sit in line with the crank pulley. The P.S. pump pulley is slightly aft of the "in-line" position and accordingly the pwr steering pump belt is...well...slanted (pun intended). Everything lines up as far as holes for the bracket, etc. It appears that this very minimal offset might be by design to avoid possible interference with the fan. In any case, nothing is noticably bent or off kilter, again, it looks like it was designed this way. The junked trucks had no belts so I never noticed if they had the same issue (I suspect they did/do). Everything functions fine so far so I am assuming this is just how things are...

Anyway, is this normal?

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Slanted D150

I just checked the pulleys on my '87 D-150 The crank and pump pulley are pretty much in line. Are the engine and pump from the same year? The pump mounting bracket my have been different for different years - just a possibility.

-TJ

Did you switch from manual steering?
I did on mine and theres an extra pulley on the front of the existing pulley that you need. Mine had a "plate" to cover the hole in the front. Just remove the three bolts, that plate, and install the pulley. You will have to pull the large center bolt that holds the balancer in place.
If you haven't already noticed, the steering shaft is shorter on the power steering one, so you'll need that too.

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'81 D150 2WD shortbed 4spd OD.

The donor truck was a 1983 D100, the truck it went into is a 1982 D150. I DID take some pictures of the donor/junkyard rig--just looked at them, same slight offset. This must be by design or simply within the acceptable build tolerance...or my eyeballs are skewed. Basically if you were to lay a ruler from the crank pulley to the pwr steering pump pulley it would be perhaps 1/4" of offset where the pwr steering pump is towards the rear and slightly "twisted" towards the drivers side. I imagine that if I pulled the bracket off and bent it in a twisting motion that most of this would be corrected. Given that it is a steel stamping at least 1/8" thick I don't think I will be twisting this anytime soon. All of the holes for the bracket and the steering gear box lined up with no problems noted.

A set of new hoses (FYI, your Dodge dealer still carries these by the way) and I am living life large. Best $55 I spent so far, included a 15" PentaStar steering wheel. Frankly I am surprised by how tight the steering is--that manual box must have been three steps past gone...

On another note...still tuning that Weber 32/36--looking for my zip from the secondaries (close but not there yet)--went to 180/180 main and air on the secondary, pulls evenly but not the bang I want to see. Might be time to get an O2 sensor put in place, have to use that excuse to convince my wife to let me get a 2-1/4" exhaust put in...

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Slanted D150

Truckman: Yes, I did switch from manual steering. I nabbed the third pulley off the crank damper as well as everything associated with the power steering (brackets, pump, hoses, steering box, pitman arm, pulleys, etc). I didn't bother with the steering shaft since I installed a Borgenson shaft about a year ago. FYI, Borgenson shaft for a D150--money well spent. It isn't cheap, but it is way better than that lame thing Chrysler put into the D/W truck lines. The Borgenson shaft can collapse so fitting it to the slightly longer power steering gear box was easy enough (considering you are under a truck). Tweaking the position to get the steering wheel lined up required the use of the significant other to center the wheel--she was mostly understanding as long as she stayed inside the truck and not under it!

I did note that my frame rail was drilled for four bolts holes--i.e. for a power steering gear box...the manual box only used three bolts. My guess is that power steering was the design criteria for the truck. This is/was my Grandfathers only new truck--he liked them simple, no power anything. I swapped in pwr brakes and pwr steering to make the ride more civilized...cranking a 131" wheelbase full sized truck in a parking garage is NOT a good time.

It appears that maybe my donor truck had a slightly bent bracket, or maybe not. I might pop back in the wrecking yard again tomorrow with a camera and look at the other truck and see if it has a straighter belt path--if so I will nab that bracket. Interesting "junk yard"--reminds me of the "Hills Have Eyes." But, they do four Slants there, two of them are trucks so I shouldn't complain.

After doing this swap I understand why sperpentine belts were developed, I have no idea how A/C would fit on a Slant with an Air Pump, Pwr Steering, and the alternator/water pump belt. Haven't seen a Slant with A/C yet ...Note that I installed a entire new set of belts (all three of them) and they fit as they are supposed to. I will resize an image and see about uploading one when I get a chance...

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Slanted D150