Steering Box Rebuild

[treads]

I'm looking to go to hydro assist steering on my rig. Redneck Rams wants $125 to rebuild the steering box and to drill and tap it for the lines to the ram. Has any one done this? I'm trying to find out if I should try it or just pay the $125 to get it done.

If any one has hydro assist , what set up did they use and do they like it?

Also i guess there is a way to boost the out put pressure of the pump from 900psi to 1200psi. by changing a part in the back were the lines go in. Does any one know of this?

[Viperwolf1]

That sounds like a good price. A seal kit alone is over $60.

[Justin]

x2 on what Viper said. It isn't that hard, just really fiddly. You have to be pretty careful of the seals. You might give cascadejohnson a shout, he's pretty familiar with the insides of these boxes. What box are you running, BTW?

[crawlercreations]

Piece of cake. I am running ram assist and did it myself. I also, just recently, built and ported a box for JTS that he is running now.

Are you running the 4X4X2 box or stock? Either can be ported just the 4X4X2 box is better.

But why do you want ram assist if you don't want to use it?

[kchaser]

I want (or need) to do the same thing. Hate to pay the shipping to send my box in to have worked on. Anybody try this method from EMS offroad?

http://www.emsoffroad.com/EMS_New/Tech_Media/install_inst/HydroAssistInstall.pdf

[sbolt19]

The shipping isn't really that bad. It's like $40 to have it shipped & Redneck (West Texas Offroad) is an excellent company. They did mine a few years back and it was in transit for more time than they actually had it. I think I was down for a grand total of 13 days, with 7 of in the hands of UPS. I will say that if you do decide to ship it to them, send it down in a 5 gallon bucket. It saves on UPS beating the hell out of it. They ship it back in a box with expansive foam around the box.

[Jesus_man]

I bought a stock box that was rebuilt by WTO. They ported it for ram assist. I would have them do it again if I needed to. I put my own kit together.

This ram:
http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?U ... 7258-8&cat

Went to the local hydraulic shop and bought hose and fittings that I could assemble myself for trail repairs.

Been working great for three years now and my cousin is also running the same ram.

J.D.

[treads]

Thanks for all the info. I might run hydro assits later that's why I want it drilled. I have a stock box not the 4x4x2.

[Booger]

Also i guess there is a way to boost the out put pressure of the pump from 900psi to 1200psi. by changing a part in the back were the lines go in. Does any one know of this?

If I remember correctly you would add a washer behind the pressure relief valve spring. The thickness of the washer or washer stack determines the pressure. Thicker = higher pressure.

Years ago I worked for a company that built portable roll forming equipment (portable gutter machines you see that roll up to your house and run out new gutter for your house) and we designed a machine that used your stock power steering pump to operate a machine in the bed of the truck. Since the typical machine required 120 vac this was a big improvement for remote use. I remember having to boost the pressure on a few of the pumps to get higher pressure.