I wanted to keep the stock look of the 50 Ford so I decided to adapt the original steering column and shift levers to the rack & pinion and the automatic transmission.
I cut the steering column tube and shaft off of the frame mounted steering box, made a bushing for the new end of the tube and pressed it in to support the shortened shaft with the end flattened on each side to the "D" u-joint.
New holes were drilled at the end of the tube to accept the original shifting assembly then one of the shifter arms was removed by making spacers to hold the one remaining arm and to keep the original pen in place that fits into the notch in the arm thus making the arm & shifting shaft move as one unit to select the auto transmission positions.
Next I made a new bracket for the fire wall mount and welded it to the shifter assembly at the bottom of the column and made a temporary shift pointer at the existing dash column mount.
I made the shifter plate/bracket out of 2 pieces of 3/8 strap with different shift rod attachments holes and bolted it to the transmission shifting lever I had used one of the original shift rods to connect to the bottom of the steering column.
Next problem was the driver side exhaust manifold dumped out in the middle of the rack and pinion so I moved the manifold back one port, #1 port is now #2 port and cut a #2 port pipe and flange off of another header I have and welded it into the header making a new #1 port attachment the cut off the #4 port Flange and pipe.
The reconfigured header now clears the rack and pinion and the steering u-joints and shaft. The transmission mount is a stock Ford AOD mount with the existing cross member drilled to accept it.
Motor mounts were cut from 3/8 plate, 1-that bolts to the block and a 3 piece assembly that was welded together and then welded to the front cross member
The motor mount pad is from "The Rodster Shop" and ordered from Speedway.
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