I picked up my donor engine for my 56 F100 friday (89 4.9L/300 inline six) that was completely trimmed out, P/S pump, AC compressor etc. I noticed when I was unhooking the lines from the power steering pump on the 300 that there was one pressure line with fittings and one return line with just a hose clamp on it. It is for a Gearbox style steering setup. My rack and pinion (04 crown victoria) however has two pressurized lines with fittings coming out of it. Assuming I get all the hose connections/adapters etc, will that rack and pinion work with that pump?
One of those "pressurized" lines on your rack is the return line, there is no pressure on it. They just used a fancier fitting than they did in the old days. You need a hose with the correct end to fit the fitting, and normal 3/8" hose at the other end to fit the pump.
They make different fittings for your rack too. Look carefully at the rack to determine which style fitting you need.
OEs generally use crimped fittings on all the hoses, but you'll find that return line is not a reinforced pressure hose, it's just a low-pressure hose with a crimped fitting. You'll need to have hoses the right length with the right fittings on the end, of course. I'm not sure what kind of pressure/flow the CV rack expects vs what the pump on the truck 300 puts out. You'd need a CV shop manual (or equivalent Ford software, or some digging around in CV forums) to figure that out.
Heidts sells an adjustable pressure valve that you can plumb in if the pump makes the rack to sensitive. Borgeson sells a kit to adjust the stock pressure valve on the saginaw pump. If the crown vic uses the same pump as the donor motor, you may be able to swap the crown vic valve into the donor motor pump.
The nice thing about the CV rack is it has a hi/low speed valve built into it. Its activated off of a speed sensor. My plan was to use a switch to energize if I needed to quicken the speed.
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