Studebaker Power Steering Ram Rebuild - how to

[sbca96]

EDIT for picture location, and to add critical Q & A thread link.

http://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7602

I should add that I ended up NOT rebuilding the power ram. So far it
isnt leaking and working fine. Just cleaned & replaced hoses. 12/31/08

Now back to the original thread :

Since I am a glutton for punishment, I have ventured ahead on this
power steering rebuild project. Next on my hit list is the power ram.
This guy is where all the pressure ends up from the pump, diverted by
the control valve on the pitman arm. Its bolted on one end to the
front frame rail, and the other end goes to an arm off the bell crank.



A 3/4 box end wrench can do the job if you know the trick of hooking
another wrench to the open end to "extend" it for more leverage. First
I tried backing off the nut and wacking it a couple times with a large
sledge hammer. That didnt work. Second I tried a neat new tool that
pushes the tip of the shaft, and pops the end right out of the arm. It
didnt work either - the frame is in the way.



Lastly, I used the "old reliable" - pickle fork. Obviously it worked
just fine, except it destroyed the boot - its trademark.



On the other end, I had to cut the steel end of the hoses, rust wasnt
allowing the flare nut to turn on the tube. This results in the tube
trying to turn WITH the flare nut and twisting the tube. A hacksaw is
quite capable of negotiating through the old rusted tube quite fast.



Unfortunately, when I unthreaded the nut off the pivot bolt, it also
took the threads with it! Now my pivot bolt is screwed up. Not sure
what to do about this, I bet Studebaker International has one, but I
just dont have the cash to pay for it right now. I will have to take
it off the car and see if I can rethread it to the next metric size
down (to leave more material).[B)]



Took a couple minutes to scrape all the crap off it and get as much of
the fluid out of it as I could.



Some of the fluid was BLACK, thats kinda odd.[?] It cleaned up OK.



Tom


'63 Avanti, zinc plated drilled & slotted 03 Mustang Cobra 13" front disc/98 GT rear brakes, 03 Cobra 17" wheels, GM alt, 97 Z28 leather seats, soon: 97 Z28 T-56 6-spd, Ported heads w/SST full flow valves, 'R3' 276 cam, Edelbrock AFB Carb, GM HEI distributor, 8.8mm plug wires

[DEEPNHOCK]

$13,900 for a PT Cruiser???
Man, Things are bad in California[:0]
Jeff[8D]

[Rerun]

Why remove the rod end from the bellcrank arm at all? Count the number of threads showing on the cylinder rod end (helpful on re-assembly). Loosen the jam nut, and unscrew the cylinder rod from the rod end. After rebuild, screw the rod back into the rod end and tighten the jam nut. This seems a lot easier, and you won't damage the rod end or boot. Or am I missing something here?

Jim Bradley
'64 Daytona HT "Rerun"

[N8N]

Tie rod boots are available from several vendors, not a problem (assuming it's the same boot - it looks like it is)

nate

--
55 Commander Starlight

http://members.cox.net/njnagel

[sbca96]

Thats what I was thinking, and it makes perfect sense. The downside
is that taking pictures of the pieces would be harder, at least the
'tierod' end anyway. The end has to come off anyway, so yes it makes
perfect sense now that I have cleaned it up and can see what it looks
like. Marking/counting the threads and unscrewing it should work.

quote:Originally posted by Rerun

Loosen the jam nut, and unscrew the cylinder rod from the rod end.

Any thoughts on what happened at the frame end?? Nice threads huh? I
am thinking impact gun. I got the piece off today. I dont see it in
the Studebaker International catalog. I will bring it to work tomorrow
and see if they can turn it on the lathe down to the next size metric
thread like I mentioned. It doesnt see and great forces that I can
picture. Thoughts?





Rust does such nice things to bolts, it would have been nice had it
just broke off, I have to replace it anyway, but instead the threads
were just hard to turn but good.



Tom

[sbca96]

No input on the pivot pin? I came up empty on a replacement, so its
going into the lathe to get rethreaded tomorrow. I got a new boot for
the 'tierod' end, and fixed the damaged thread from the nifty press
out tierod tool. It seems that since it was pushing on it crooked, it
crushed the last 4 threads above the center of the cotter pin hole. I
used the belt sander at work and just removed those threads - they are
not "used" anyway. The threads came out of the nut when I removed it,
and I couldnt get a replacement (1/2-24 castle nut??) so I went thru
a box of old parts and found my old '95 Impala SS upper balljoints.
Guess what?? Exactly the same as the Studebaker castle nut.

Tom

[r1lark]

quote:Second I tried a neat new tool that
pushes the tip of the shaft, and pops the end right out of the arm. It
didnt work either - the frame is in the way.

Tom,

I have used one of these tie rod pullers a number of times, and for tight spaces I replace the original 'bolt' with a shorter bolt for extra clearance. For example, the steering pitman arm on my '64 GT needed this trick.

Paul

Visit The Studebaker Skytop Registry website at: http://hometown.aol.com/r1skytop/myhomepage/index.html

[sbca96]

Unfortunately it wasnt the bolt that got in the way, it was the actual
housing of the puller. It wouldnt fit, the bellcrank just doesn't let
the ball end swing out far enough to clear. The frame is in the way.[V]

Tom

quote:Originally posted by r1lark

I have used one of these tie rod pullers a number of times, and for tight spaces I replace the original 'bolt'..

[Scott]

Man, Tom. I sure wish I lived next door to you. I'd learn a lot and we'd both get more done faster on our Studebakers.

Hey Minnesota's a nice place and the housing is reasonable. Don't suppose you'd want to move up here and join the Northstar Chapter?

[sbca96]

Thanks Scott .. I could certainly use an extra set of hands!

Reading ahead in the shop manual instructions, I noticed that the
dimension of the ball end to eye is given. The bad part is that it
doesnt match MY power ram dimension, and I havent loosened anything.
It also doesnt look like I can even hit that number if I max out the
threads! The current dimension is 14-15/64ths from what I can tell.

The shop manual states :

Install the lock nut and ball stud end. Thread the
end until the distance from the center of the cylinder
eye to the center of the ball stud is 13-7/8" (35,24cm).
Then, tighten the lock nut.

Any input? Mike? Nate?

Tom

[N8N]

Sorry, only P/S I've had is the old Saginaw type... I'm no help here.

I may eventually post a "how to replace the Pitman arm seal" if the fact that my steering box is packed with CV grease ever bothers me enough

nate

--
55 Commander Starlight

http://members.cox.net/njnagel

[Mike]

I removed the cylinder by unscrewing the adjustment; because it was too hard to get to the the tie rod end on the bell crank, to remove it. I left the lock nut in position, so I could put it back at about the same length. The ram was new; so I haven't taken it apart.
I think close is good enough on the length of the ram. It doesn't change alignment. I would be best to keep a worn cylinder working in the same area of travel.
It's funny that Stude specifies the ram length to 1/8"; but says "about 15" for the control rod length, which really is important.
Mike M.

[sbca96]

I dunno .. I guess what it is .. is what it is, I might shorten it as
much as I can when I put it back together. Here is the pivot bolt on
the lathe at work. Turned the 1/2-13 threads off to the major of the
7/16-20 thread he is putting on it. I decided on 7/16-20, over doing
a 7/16-14 because it picks up another 5 foot pounds of max torque. The
nut is supposed to be torqued 45-50 ft pounds and the standard rating
on a 7/16-20 is 50 ft lbs. Just barely gets me in the door :





Here is the grease boot I got from Napa - 5 bucks! Looks like it will
work fine though. You can also see the '95 Impala SS upper ball joint
castle nut and the threads I had to remove that got damaged.



Here are all the parts cleaned up on the wire wheel at work, and the
now rethreaded pivot bolt :





I tried with shop pressure (80 psi) to blow the seal out of the ram,
that was a pointless effort. The shop has a water fed 1000 psi ram,
but I dont want to introduce water into the PS ram. I guess the next
step is to see if there is a way to manually remove the seal without
damaging the cylinder bore (shop manual suggests awls) or wait until
I have the control valve rebuilt and the new hoses on to do the left
turn POP thats recommended.

Tom

[Laemmle]

Tom.
Since you are under the car..........how many holes are there in the bottom of the radiator support?

Thanks!

quote:Originally posted by sbca96

Since I am a glutton for punishment, I have ventured ahead on this
power steering rebuild project. Next on my hit list is the power ram.
This guy is where all the pressure ends up from the pump, diverted by
the control valve on the pitman arm. Its bolted on one end to the
front frame rail, and the other end goes to an arm off the bell crank.



A 3/4 box end wrench can do the job if you know the trick of hooking
another wrench to the open end to "extend" it for more leverage. First
I tried backing off the nut and wacking it a couple times with a large
sledge hammer. That didnt work. Second I tried a neat new tool that
pushes the tip of the shaft, and pops the end right out of the arm. It
didnt work either - the frame is in the way.



Lastly, I used the "old reliable" - pickle fork. Obviously it worked
just fine, except it destroyed the boot - its trademark.



On the other end, I had to cut the steel end of the hoses, rust wasnt
allowing the flare nut to turn on the tube. This results in the tube
trying to turn WITH the flare nut and twisting the tube. A hacksaw is
quite capable of negotiating through the old rusted tube quite fast.



Unfortunately, when I unthreaded the nut off the pivot bolt, it also
took the threads with it! Now my pivot bolt is screwed up. Not sure
what to do about this, I bet Studebaker International has one, but I
just dont have the cash to pay for it right now. I will have to take
it off the car and see if I can rethread it to the next metric size
down (to leave more material).[B)]



Took a couple minutes to scrape all the crap off it and get as much of
the fluid out of it as I could.



Some of the fluid was BLACK, thats kinda odd.[?] It cleaned up OK.



Tom


'63 Avanti, zinc plated drilled & slotted 03 Mustang Cobra 13" front disc/98 GT rear brakes, 03 Cobra 17" wheels, GM alt, 97 Z28 leather seats, soon: 97 Z28 T-56 6-spd, Ported heads w/SST full flow valves, 'R3' 276 cam, Edelbrock AFB Carb, GM HEI distributor, 8.8mm plug wires

[John Kirchhoff]

Concerning the damaged threads, I've had the same thing. That happens when a section of thread is actually gets torn from either side and proceeds to flatten everything during removal.

I used a seal kit I got from a Stude vendor years ago and while the seal was right, the (yellow) spacer was too thick rendering me unable to install the snap ring. I had to use the old one but the sealing capability of the seal was not impacted and it's been fine since.

The seal is very easy to pop out with the system running but I'd be very cautious about other methods or getting the seal out. Were it me, I'd have the cylinder shaft all skinned up and ruined.

With this kind of cylinder, when reassembling I like to rotate the cylinder shaft 90 or 180 degrees. Power steering cylinder shafts tend to wear in one spot on one side because of side loads. They'll wear through the chrome and once into the steel, you usually have a permanent leak that new seals won't cure and is fixable only with a new shaft. Rotating the shaft will put wear on the opposite side and prolong the shaft life.

Tom, considering all the trials and tribulations you've had with this project, you're either a very patient man or a man on the verge of going berserk.