Ford steering box replacement

Hey guys as with these labors of love theres always something else. I noticed a pretty strong leak from the steering box and its coming from i guess the output seal. The box is leaking on the bottom. The poor mans approach had me adding powersteering fluid until it got milky. The other day it was cold enough the moisture froze within the power steering pump preventing it from spinning. I went to start it today seeing as it was in the 40s and the pump started turning again. I know its milky from air and water may or may not have been why the pump locked up. But above 32 outside it was spinning just fine. I believe a seal to be bad on the box. Ive looked around and am considering just doing a manual steering gear. I dont need to parallel park so not to worried. With that being said on a 74 what steering gear bolts in there? Will the mounts be the same manual vs ps? And what boxes have worked for you all? Im not opposed to the rebuild kit its simply id rather replace the whole unit. Id free up space under the hood too giving up the pump and my ac components with the manual box. Just trying to find an easy solution to it all im sure none of us have deeeeep pockets. Dave.

Yes, they made these cars with manual steering. You can still get the manual boxes, Lares 8922 is a manual box.  It will swap in place of a power box.  You can also just buy another power steering box.  Rock Auto lists that manual box as well as a number of power boxes.

Would the castle nut back itself off and would i risk the pitman arm coming out? I spoke to a technition and he said that they dont always have cotter pins, the tapered part isnt supposed to seat inside the drag link and because the spindle points upward its unlikely itll just all come apart. Thoughts? Is that a load of bs ?

Sounds like the diameter is incorrect. I ran into that on my gold car when I swapped to a 1978 setup with a Lares 841 fast ratio box. Yes, my red wagon did have a manual box and it was painfully slow (like 6 turns lock to lock).

unlovedford wrote: Sounds like the diameter is incorrect. I ran into that on my gold car when I swapped to a 1978 setup with a Lares 841 fast ratio box. Yes, my red wagon did have a manual box and it was painfully slow (like 6 turns lock to lock).

Todd, to make matters worse, it had that thin plastic base Torino wheel. Was better when I installed the Sport wheel, but then I installed a PS box without the pump for a few trips. Faster ratio, but man, it was tough to steer at low speeds with 8 inch rims up front and 55 series tires, lol.