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Not much to report yet. Mostly what I did was cleaned up in and around my lift so I could get the Mustang off the lift and put the Galaxie on the lift. Once I had it up in the air I took a good look at what kind of issues I may or may not have as I put it all together. I also modified my rac to maximize turning radios. To do so I first removed the boot from the rack. Once you do that there is a spacer that slides inside the rac window. By trimming down the spacer I was able to get total travel to just shy of 6.5" not quite the same amount as the OEM steering travel but close. I think I am only short 1/4" I drilled a hole part way into each of the steel spacers so that I could install a piece of key stock between them. This should keep the spacers from rotating so that the flat part is always on the outside. I also plan on gluing in the key stock as well as gluing the spacers to the plastic, just to help hold everything in place. As you can see from the pic of my modified spacer next to an unmodified spacer I was able to remove quite a bit of material.
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Thanks for the picture. You mentioned there was a way to increase the steering in another post. Pictures are so helpful understanding how to do stuff. I think I will drive mine as is for now. If I find I need a little more turning, I will give your method a try.
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update, not all racks are the same. I have two, one newer one and one that is a junker. The junker benefited from the smaller internal piece but the newer reman unit bottomed out internally at 6.1875" total travel, so to me it makes no sense to use the modified internal piece as I really don't think it is good for the rack to bottom out internally and totally not worth it for only 3/16" extra steering travel.
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Making progress!! I went out to the garage yesterday and pulled all the OEM power steering components and scraped off 57 years of grime and grease that had accumulated on the frame around the steering box and the power steering parts. I also began the mock up. I am doing things a little different. I started fabricating up my center steer conversion bracket because maintaining the OEM geometry is the most important thing to me in this project. Once I get the bracket finished up I will install the tie-rods to the bracket then install the bracket on the rack. From there I can position the rack and setup the mounting brackets.
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Make sure to post pictures, please. 
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70XL wrote:
Make sure to post pictures, please.
Two afternoons of work and I still don't have much to show, but here are the pix of the project so far
Spent quite a bit of time yesterday removing all this antiquated junk
I then started ruffing out the connector bracket. it is made of 3/16" angle with a 7/8" spacer, it will be beefed up where the tie rods attached and then I will gusset it to make it much stronger
When I originally was planning for this project and gathering parts I decided to make my tie-rods so I could use heim joints at the inside mount. I might still use the OEM tie-rods but for now will mock it up with the heim joint rods.
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Made some more progress on my rack and pinion for the Galaxie. As I start putting components in, this is what I am trying to emulate. 
This mod has been done quite a bit, and was even offered commercially for a while so I don't need to reinvent the wheel but I also think I can improve on the way others have done it.
This is the key to my system. I wanted to have a bracket that takes the center steer of the J-car rack and positions the inner tie-rods exactly where ford put them over 50 years ago. To that end I built the take off bracket first. Here it is roughed out.
After a little trimming it is starting to take shape
The reason I built the take off bracket first is I was then able to adjust my tie-rods to be the same length as each other and the same length as an average of what the OEM tie-rods measured after I pulled them from the car, bolt the tie rods up to the steering arms of the spindles, attach the other end of the tie-rods to my bracket, bolt the bracket to the rack and then raise the rack into place. exactly where it needs to be. I can now come up with mounting brackets for the rack that position it exactly where I want it. The other option would have been to mount the rack first then make the take off bracket fit the application. I know this would have worked well as others have done it this way but I also know others have had to slightly compromise on inner tie rod location to make it work and I didn't want to do that. Other than strength maintaining the OEM steering geometry is my #1 goal.
One thing I did not like about some of the installs I have seen others do and even the way the commercial version of this rack was set up, was to use a piece of angle iron as the take off bracket. This actually puts the inner tie rod mount at an angle rather than the mounting face being perpendicular to the road so rather than using angle iron I used 3/16" plate bent to an angle grater than 90º so the mounting face would be vertical when installed . (I know what you are thinking 3/16" plate is not strong enough. Not to worry it will be reinforced with 1/2" bar stock where the tie-rods mount, 7/8" bar stock where the plate mounts to the rack AND 3 gussets made of 1/8" plate will run between both mounting locations.
As you can see with the rack mocked up the mounting face for the inner tie-rod is nice and vertical
The rack looks right at home under my car. Now I just need to finish reinforcing the take off bracket, come up with some mounting brackets to hold the rack in place, fab up a steering shaft including a way to bolt it to my OEM steering column and plumb the system. Oh yah I will also need to give the car an alignment. Sounds like fun to me.
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Looking good! Good thing you have a lift in your garage, just what you need for this project. I like how you bent your offset bracket greater than 90 degrees. The tie rods seem to sit in a more natural position that way. Could you explain the reason you felt this was necessary?
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"Necessary" is probably not the best word I think "optimal" is a better choice. Tie-rods and heim joints have the same basic range of motion and if you put them on their main axis you can rotate them 360º but the other motion directions are limited. The majority of the movement the inner tie rod-will see in vertical so by making the mount vertical most of the movement from suspension travel is on the same axes as the primary joint axes. Make sense?? Having the inner tie rod at an angle will result in motion that is a combination of both its main access and the other motion. Functional but not “optimal” 
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Just to clarify...by making the bracket greater than 90 degrees the way that you did the tie rods are sitting in a position which permits them to move to their maximum range of motion. Their motion or movement will not be limited?
...just trying to understand...thanks!
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