Power steering effort

[dremu]

I've noticed my pickup requires greater steering effort now than my other trucks, even against another hydroboost rig.

I've recently replaced most of the steering and brakes on the pickup, converting it to dually, rear disc, and hydroboost.

The pump is new (reman) from a good parts house, and doesn't squeal and chatter the way my old one did. The brakes are pretty good, still have some kinks to work on there maybe... but the steering requires more effort than I'd like.

The box is also a fresh reman, so I'm loathe to go adjusting it.

I suppose the next step would be to make the pump flow mods from the WTO page? Any other ideas? The hoses might have collapsed, but they're fairly fresh, and at various points in the pickup's saga the steering has been okay, so I'm not in a rush to blame the hoses.

-- A

 

[73k5blazer]

Alot of the reman shops overtighten the sector shaft adjustment. Normally, people like to try to adjust the box in a futile attempt to elminate play in the steering system. In this case, however, this is what the adjustment is for, how much effort it takes to turn the thing. A good final test perhaps, to elminate the possiblity of the pump not providing enough boost is to see how much effort it takes to turn the wheel with the engine off and the front end raised and see how it compares to your other trucks. Try a fish scale on the steering wheel or the tie-rod for measuring if you really want to get down to it, but by hand is probably good enough to tell.
This all is of course, if you feel the linkanges and such aren't binding somewhere, the hydroboost and pump are pretty cut and dry, except for the orfice size on the pump output (can't remember sizes, but there's different ones for the application 1/2,3/4,1ton w or w/o hydroboost etc, c,k etc...) but in the end it's still pretty trival (the orfice size that is).
I'd guess your re-man'd box was over-adjusted during it's overhaul.

 

[dremu]

Alot of the reman shops overtighten the sector shaft adjustment. Normally, people like to try to adjust the box in a futile attempt to elminate play in the steering system. In this case, however, this is what the adjustment is for, how much effort it takes to turn the thing. A good final test perhaps, to elminate the possiblity of the pump not providing enough boost is to see how much effort it takes to turn the wheel with the engine off and the front end raised and see how it compares to your other trucks. Try a fish scale on the steering wheel or the tie-rod for measuring if you really want to get down to it, but by hand is probably good enough to tell.
This all is of course, if you feel the linkanges and such aren't binding somewhere, the hydroboost and pump are pretty cut and dry, except for the orfice size on the pump output (can't remember sizes, but there's different ones for the application 1/2,3/4,1ton w or w/o hydroboost etc, c,k etc...) but in the end it's still pretty trival (the orfice size that is).
I'd guess your re-man'd box was over-adjusted during it's overhaul.

Well, I'm reasonably sure the pump is the right one (C30 with hydroboost) as I went through hell to get it right ... I have a drilled out orifice as a spare, I do believe, but I'm leery of fiddling with ANYTHING hydraulic on that truck as I'm this close || to having it 100%, which is closer than it's been for six months.

Thanks for the tip on the box; I'll give that a roll!

-- A

 

[pvfjr]

This happened to me once. My stock box on my 78 stepside required very little steering effort. Swapped in one from a 87 burb when my old one started puking it's guts out. I ended up with less assist, but got used to it. Now I'm on to bigger and better things with crossover, hydro assist, and a 2wd box, but there was definitely a change between my original one and the one I replaced it with. They were both the stock boxes from the trucks they came with though. Neither had been tampered with, and they both worked fine (minus the leaking in the first one).