Progress has been hindered by life, school, a due date on a pullin tractor and excettera excettra. But this week I managed to get some good stuff accomplished. I have about a week and a half to install the shackle flip, remove the 4" block, build my sliders and install at the least my rear BTF diff cover (if the plugs ever come in in time).
Wednesday I drilled/tapped my steering box and put on my assist cylinder (this post will be sort of a mini-how-to).
Hydro-Assist on a Saginaw steering box. (I hold no responsibility for your assist adventure, if you decide to take on this project it is of your own doing. This post is only for informational purposes).
What you need:
Drill press, 7/16" drill bit, 1/4x18 NPT tap, hydro lines, cylinder and mounting tabs
Steps
1) Remove box from vehicle
2) Fix box to press
3) Drill top hole in the center of the casting. If drilling box assembled, drill this hole to 0.94" deep.
4) Drill bottom hole centered on the cast tab and in line with the port on the front of box. Drill this hole to 0.5", I drilled a little low so my hole was not as deep.
5) Remove shavings from box.
6) Tap both holes with amble amounts of stickey grease to catch chips of metal. Be weary of depth of tap because these tapered taps can get away from you and you may be left with a tapped hole with not enough thread on the fitting. On my lower hole (the high pressure with a right turn) the hole was not deep enough so I had to grind the tap slightly to aquire adequate thread engagement.
7) Test tapped holes to fittings.
8) Once your threads are deep enough re-install box into truck. I opted to install the lines to the box at this time because I had my lines made without swivel fittings.
9) Attach lines to cylinder. The upper hole is the high pressure port for a left turn while the lower is the high pressure port for the right turn. Install lines to the cylinder in your desired oritentation.
10) Bleed system. I left my draglink off the pitman arm and the cylinder unmounted with the truck off (the cylinder will work backwards of the steering box without pressure) for about a quart of fluid. Once the resi stayed relatively full I attached the draglink and jacked the front tires off the ground and proceeded to bleed system with power.
11) Once the system is bled, attach your cylinder to the axle and tierod to check clearances.
12) After clearances are checked, permanintly weld mounts to vehicle.
13) Enjoy. Keep tabs on resi/fluid level because air will continue to escape.
