[Heard]

Hello fellow Barners! I need a steering box sleuth to educate me a bit.

During this LONG restoration of my '35 pickup I decided to put a '40 steering box in so I bought one from someone a long time ago. Somehow, I ended up with two '40 boxes or so I thought. I have no recollection of where the 2nd box came from. I also ended up with 3 horn rods. I have the original '35 from the pickup and 2 '40 rods. One of the rods I bought separately without the steering box.

Well, I finally got around to rebuilding it and during the rebuild of the box with new gears, etc. I discovered that one of the bottom plates is different. Specifically, the little tube that is attached to the bottom plate is a different diameter as you can see in the attached photos.

All of the horn rods I have are the same diameter of about .375. As you can see, there is no way any of these rods are going to go through that small diameter tube. The brass tube works perfectly.

So....my question is, when did Ford make smaller diameter horn rods or is it possible that this is Mercury or ??? The boxes seem to be identical except for these tubes.

Thanks,
Heard