Electric Power Steering in Volvo 122

I supplied the parts to a fellow member of the Chilean Volvo Club. Fernando did the installation in his shop. He is very pleased with the result. I'll post more pictures when, and if, I receive them.

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The two bolts circled with yellow show what that you see in the engine compartment. The bolts secure the EPAS unit under the dash, and keep it from turning as it exerts torque on the steering shaft.

A video is here, https://youtu.be/S4S5kW9xcj8

What parts?

FrankBooth said:

What parts?

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Essentially what is in the photo below, the used electric assist power steering unit and associated parts, and the electronic adapter which makes it work without having an input signal from an electronic speedometer.

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It's been done before and it looks pretty nice. It's an electric power assist unit from cars like the Saturn Vue, Chevrolet Equinox or Pontiac Torrent.
Here's a past thread about it being installed in an 1800.
http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=341174

And there's a supplier of these kits here:
http://www.epowersteering.com/index.html

Dave B

Edit: Ok, I see that you were involved in the last one too.
This would be great for a 240 except for the PS rack in there.

I wish the pictures worked! I’ve been thinking hard about this for my truck but not sure how to make it work with the column shift.

Edit: Same issue in my post. Mirrored for now but will take them down at OP's request.

Thanks for your help. Please keep the photos up in your post. If you have any tips for me, for photo hosting and posting, please share them.

This is on my short list for the 142.

Tfrasca said:

This is on my short list for the 142.

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If you don't want to source the parts yourself, I sell the basic used EPAS components for $250, shipping extra. I include the electronic adapter, made by Bruno in Portugal, for that price.

Have to ask the question, don't take it personally - is the result of this installation steering that is as lifeless, numb, disconnected and overly light as any of these cars mentioned above: "cars like the Saturn Vue, Chevrolet Equinox or Pontiac Torrent."

Stiggy Pop said:

Have to ask the question, don't take it personally - is the result of this installation steering that is as lifeless, numb, disconnected and overly light as any of these cars mentioned above: "cars like the Saturn Vue, Chevrolet Equinox or Pontiac Torrent."

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I hope someone who has installed one of these will reply. The amount of assist is adjusted by the driver using the potentiometer supplied in the kit. You can have zero assist, or full assist. I have never had anyone complain about the steering being too light, because the assist is so easily adjusted.

I've been very happy with EPAS in my E36 Lemons camper car but your results may vary. I've got a big iron V8 (5.3) with 255 tires and a lot of camber to overcome, so the end result with electric is definitely lighter steering but not completely numb. We figured for endurance racing it's preferable to err on the side of being over-boosted to help stave off fatigue - maybe that applies to a DD type car as well.

We used a Toyota system, from a Prius. Similar system can be found on the Yaris. Pulled from a junkyard donor with the brain box. In the original car it varied steering boosted based on some CAN inputs (vehicle speed at least) but we skipped that. When you first power up the car it looks for that signal, doesn't find it, and in about 3 or 4 seconds goes into a default mode with constant boost ratio. It has a built-in torque sensor so it does provide more boost when you need more, and less when you don't, based on driver input into the steering wheel.

We adapted the whole column into the E36 including the Prius steering wheel. Made an adapter in the engine bay / firewall area to connect to the standard E36 coupler and de-powered E36 rack.