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Prodject ZeroToWow

One isse that we had found with hydro, the power steering pump reserviour isn't large enough for when the ram contracts, causing fluid loss, and even worse on sidehills with the driver side on the downhill side. There are a few options. One I actually stubled across when I did mine. When I did mine, I just used the stock saginaw pump, and was runing into the fluid issue. It just so happened that I gutted an astro can for a buddy, and saved the pump from it(this was actually a year before) and was going thru my stock pile when I found the pump. They used a sealed tank with a remote reservior, perfect. They used this setup on the astro's from 87 and up and on the G-van (gm full size van) from 88 and on up. Unfortuanately, I was not able to locate these items easily on jeffs, so I opted for the other method.

First, I removed the pump, cut about 1/2" off the top where the twist in cap sat and capped the hole and drilled and tapped it.

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Now that this was done, It was time to figure out what to do for a reservior tank. I took a peice of pipe, capped the bottem end, tapped it, and took the part I cut off the power steering pump and welded it to the top of the pipe and made mounts.

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One thing you have to make sure, the res tank is higher than the pump so you don't trap air in the system..
 
Now that was done, It time to once again, modify the steering shaft. It turned out perfect, and ins't anywhere close to anything now.

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Here is the new cooler pre-fitted, it can't be completed till the lines are ran..

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So, now all I need is the ram, and then lines, and its ready to rock.
 
Crash, can this setup be run on the street?

I just sold my 44 so I can be in the "60 club" (and its getting expensive and difficult to find 44 parts since Ken's started hoarding) and have to decide what to do about, well....alot of things ;)

I had planned on the Redneck Ram but as usual your comments have got me thinking.

I personally don't like this setup, due to the fact that you still have a steering box and steerin parts to fail, and once you loose those mechanical parts, you are dead in the water (a steering box cannot act like an orbital)
Click to expand...
 
HYDRO STEERING

Mark some of the guys i run with run them here,but they tell me they are not real street friendly,Crash maybe to give more input on it,the one down side to full Hydro is if you blow hose going down the road you have no steering at all(bummer) in some states it won't pass inspection with it,I like the fact that there is no steering box or pittman arm in the thing which would allow you to move the axle forward real easy.The guys here have mixed feelings about using them here on the street.The one thing i keep hearing from them is you have no "input" from the steering wheel with what is happening on the road or trail,the other big thing i keep hearing is your more apt to break something major like a steering knuckle or a wheel since when you turn the wheel something is going to move or give.Crash any input on these comments as well?-JC
 
It really comes down to the setup, from what I have seen and experianced. My rig, can do 65mph, and handles like a dream, but I have other rigs, where anything above 20mph, was scarey.

Yes, you are right JC, the hydr has no "feedback" so its kinda hard at first to learn if your tire is against something. But, one way to help lesson blowing stuff up from being bound in tight spots, leave the pump un-touched or very mild bump up in pressure. I have found this to work wonderfully, you will actually not be able to turn the tires in those situations, where you plain and simply don't want them to turn.

In this state, full hydro is illegal from all that I have found.
 
another question

Crash what part number and brand of orbital valve are you using?,I'm still think about going this route my self-JC:D
 
Ok, I finally got the ram, and all I can say, it took some thinking to figure out how I was going to mount this thing... Before I show that part, I had found a couple good dents in the front dana60 cover, and the lower edge already bent pretty good(was shocked it wasn't leaking yet,lol), so, it got beefed up. But thats just one reason for doing this, but here are the cover pics..

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Do ya think that will hold up to some abuse jeff,lol....
 
Ok, now that the front cover was beefed up (used 1/4"), here is the rough in for the ram....

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Due to the makeup of the ram, I was VERY challenged on just how the heck to mount it. On mine, its a rc44, so the center is a little smaller and I was able to mount it on top of the springs, but there was NO way to get this to happen on jeffs. So, either I had to mount it to the center, on the cast, or the cover. Well, I have never had a problem welding cast, even on link bar suspensions, but, even so, mounted to the diff cover will be FAR stronger. So, that was another reason for making the cover VERY strong. Now, I have heard the argument, what about the cover bolts. Well, you take that many molts, all shearing off, no way.. SO, now that I have it roughed in, I still have to work on the knuckle side of it, and pretty much have it figured out. I also got the hydro lines measured, and tommorow will have those made, and we will be off and running again....
 
Ok, now that I have the ram roughed in, one problem I was faced, was where the hiem "had" to sit at the knucle. It basically had to sit about 3" below the steering arm, which, basically told me I had to somehow tie the high steer arm to the outer knuckle. This took some time to figure out, with a # of chunks of steel cut and looked at.. One thing I really wanted to try to stay away from, was welding to the knuckle (granted, I have no fear of doing so and having it hold), which in the case of a broken outer knuckle, jeff could be put in a bad situation when a replacement was installed. So, I finally figured it out...

First off, I removed the arm, and added a gusset (another issue I was faced with, was trying to gusset it horizontaly with the steering-stronger). I then took some thick material, and bored it out to 3/4" so there was ZERO play, and welded it to the bottom side of the arm, again adding strength.

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Now, that was the easy part to figure out, now the tricky park, attaching it to the knuckle with horizontal gusseting.. What I did, was make a plate, and then drill a second hole thru the knucle so there was a plate bolted to the knucle. Then I added 2 horizontal gussets with another piece of bored 3/4 material.

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This should be pretty strong, and also add stregth to the high steer arm to the knuckle..
 
Ok, so now that was done, and the mount on the housing cover was wleded on, it was time to finish the coupler for the hiem. So, once that was done, I had to figure travel of the ram. One thing that people don't relized, there is no ram that is perfectly matched to the knuckles travel, and if you don't somehow limit that, you WILL bust something, and thats usually a knucle. So, once I have the rams stroke adjusted to full drivers side lock (the coupler is adjusted so the ram runs out of travel) its time to go full passenger lock and make a measurement on the ram.

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Once that is made, you gotta pull the pin,a dn then fully compress the ram, and thats the amout you have to limit the ram... Then the next step, is to tear the ram apart since the easiest way to limit your travel, is limit the rod in the ram. Since this is a 2" ram, a piece of 2" dom is .002 too big, so a little material removal is needed, then you basically pound it down into the ram so it will bottom out against this(this can also be done to limit the extenion of the ram, depends on how you can mount it)..

Once this was done, it was time for a little paint...

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Here is hose routing... One thing I had found on mine, if you can run the lines in the center and forward, you won't get the "tugging" affect on the lines (same thing you get out of front brake lines under articulation) and running them forward, there is nothing really for them to grab.

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So, once all the lines were done, it was time to add fluid. Here is a little trick I had found. Just add fluid, and cycle the steering without it running. You will find its easier to purge the air out with out airating the fluid from the pump turning. So, with that done, I tossed the tires on, and took it for a driver. Lets just say YA BABY. I had it in 4 wheel drive, on pavement, and "forgot" the arm was on with a tight turn, I think you will love this setup jeff. I then took it up the ramp to check for clearance, and its perfect....

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Also, as a side note, some guys when they do this, will remove the pressure valve from pump and modify it to bump the pressure up, but I have found this not really a good idea, because with this setup, if you bind up due to lack of pressure, you "don't" want to be able to turn thur it....
 
Couple updates

Ok, somebody had made mention to where I had mounted the fuel pump, about it being above the level of the fuel tank. I had found what I thought was a pre-filter with a check valve, well, either it wasn't, or it wan't working, because after sitting, you could hear what sounded like air in the pump. SO, I hooked up a small portion of clear line to the return portion of the fuel line and monitored it, and yup, there is air there. So, I had made the decision to relocate the fuel pump down by the main filter.

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Another thing I had found, and something I hadn't even thought about, there are a couple wires that run above the muffler. Well, the conduit was getting a little towarm and starting to melt a bit, so I wrapped them in heat tape and relocated them closer to the body(up alitttle higher)

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Where'd they go?

Crash any idea where the pictures for the last part of the build up disappered to?
:confused:

Can't tell how much I'm looking forward to bringing zero2wow home..

thanks,
z2w
 
Re: Where'd they go?

zero2wow said:
Crash any idea where the pictures for the last part of the build up disappered to?
:confused:

Can't tell how much I'm looking forward to bringing zero2wow home..

thanks,
z2w
Click to expand...

I am just as confused as you jeff, trying to figure out what is going on with them...
 
The HOME RUN

Well, jeff came up, and we took the rig out, and hopefully he was pleased with how it did..

Here is us getting ready. My buddy matts rig on the left, mine in the middle, and who's rig is on the right :D
 
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