>Why do you have two cylinders for you power steering?
--TO make it balanced-steering. Although they're manufactured as double-acting cylinders, I have them configured as push-left, push-right. The displacement of a common double-acting hydraulic cylinder is not symmetrical- one side has a piston rod, the other side is all open volume. The rod takes up a substantial amount of displacement on the 'pull' side. If I were to use just one cylinder, i would have 3 turns lock-to-lock in one direction, but only 1.5 turns lock-to-lock in the other.
>How do you have then plumbed (if thats a real word)?
Yes, it is. Plumbing comes from the Latin word 'Plumbum', which means 'Lead'. This is why the symbol for Lead on the Periodic Table is Pb.
I have one hose going from each cylinder's PUSH side of the piston, to the hydraulic steering valve. Action of one cylinder pushes the opposite piston back, sending it's oil back through steering valve to reservoir. It's a push-push system.
>I would have thought one would have been adequate.
--Oh, one would have more than adequate force, but it'd be 'unbalanced' steering... quicker in one direction than in the other.
>Do you still have a tie rod between the spindles?
--Yes, in back, like a conventional steering system... mine's 1" OD x .188" wall DOM steel tubing, very sloppily welded together on a rainy day. Need to pretty it up.
>Are you using thrust bearings?
-Not anywhere in the steering system...
>If I decided to make my own spindles would #8 bolts be strong enough for the pivot and the axle?
-They'd be appropriate for the knuckle kingpins, but not axle pivot... Grade 8 can get pretty brittle, and the axle-pin might snap under a good shock. You won't be drilling a Grade 8 to stick a roll-pin through it...
>I noticed your steering box is quite small, where did you get it?
--Oh, that's not really a 'steering box' so much as it is a 'hydraulic steering valve'. The one in the picture is actually something I 'liberated' from an old piece of scrapped-out farm machinery. The one I actually ended up using in Loader-Mutt is a Sauer-Sundstrand from their "OSPB" line of steering valves, I purchased it from Northern Hydraulic. It has about a 4 ci displacement for each rotation of the steering wheel. Since the steering rams displace a total of 14CI of fluid, it takes about 3.25 rotations of the steering wheel to turn from one lock, to the other.
>Do you think that power steering generates much heat?
--nope- at THIS load level, it's essentially insignificant. Matter of fact, since the valve runs in open-center mode most of the time, the steering circuit probably helps COOL the fluid when the loader valves are operating.
>Can you steer without the tractor running?
--Sure can- just don't have power-assist. The hydraulic steering valve has a tiny pump in it... the pump provides pilot-pressure and volume-metering when hydraulic pressure is available, and when pressure is not, the pump moves oil from one cylinder to the other. Effort is kinda high with the loader leanin' on it, but no worse than a mechanical steering system... easy to turn if the tractor's moving, hard to turn when it's sitting still.
