Hydro

[orangecherokee]

So I'm trying to set up my hydro steer and havre hit a wall of sorts. i have the orbital but now i have to adapt it to the orginal steering. I do not want to put in a whole new column.

my idea was to just put the orbital where the steering box was and use a Charlynn orbitrol column to attach to the valve and just hook it up like you would regularly. Anyway, I find out that the spline count on the steering shaft is 25 splines from Elliot. I haven't seen that count anywhere on any of these column adapters. how would you adapt this?

[River Beast]

good question... wish I could help ya out.. but I have no idea...

Cant RJ44 help you out? or RockCandy?

[rockjeep44]

Nick I've been thinking about your problem, looked at some pics, etc and here is what I would do. Order one of the "blank" steering columns like we were talking about. That'll save you some money so that's a plus. Then just slide your splined coupler onto the blank and weld the sucker full. I know that sounds ghetto but it's really not and here is why. That coupler joint is designed to have some play in it so it's not like you have to have everything perfectly straight and true. If you ever need to disconnect your steering shaft instead of being able to loosen the bolt on the splined coupler and sliding it off you just have to take it apart at the orbital (4 bolts). I can see no downside to doing it this way, somebody jump in if I missed something but I don't think I did. My only recommendation would be bring it to my shop and let me weld it with the Miller. I don't think I'd trust the dookie welder with my steering [img]smile.gif[/img] Although it'll never see much load ever again since you have the orbital it'll turn like butta.

[rockcandy]

Originally posted by rockjeep44:
Nick I've been thinking about your problem, looked at some pics, etc and here is what I would do. Order one of the "blank" steering columns like we were talking about. That'll save you some money so that's a plus. Then just slide your splined coupler onto the blank and weld the sucker full. I know that sounds ghetto but it's really not and here is why. That coupler joint is designed to have some play in it so it's not like you have to have everything perfectly straight and true. If you ever need to disconnect your steering shaft instead of being able to loosen the bolt on the splined coupler and sliding it off you just have to take it apart at the orbital (4 bolts). I can see no downside to doing it this way, somebody jump in if I missed something but I don't think I did. My only recommendation would be bring it to my shop and let me weld it with the Miller. I don't think I'd trust the dookie welder with my steering [img]smile.gif[/img] Although it'll never see much load ever again since you have the orbital it'll turn like butta.

I think that would work. I don't know what the innards of an orbital look like, but if he pulls those 4 bolts to remove the steering shaft from the orbital, does that introduce air into the system? If not, seems like a simple solution. Like Andrew said, it isn't like that part sees much load. If you have any connections to a machine shop they could always make you a tube adaptor with different spline counts on each end to mate things up.

[River Beast]

Man!! what a trip!!! Im scaring myself now.. lol

I knew you guys would chime since you both have the Hydro setup...

[rockjeep44]

It doesn't introduce any air into the system. They are just 4 holes tapped for the very purpose of bolting and unbolting some sort of column.

[full_hydro]

my orbital is attached the factory column, but I honestly don't remember how we did it. I'm at school so I can't just go look at it. We used the danfoss column, and somehow we mated it to the factory column. This post probably isn't helping you much. But it can be done, and it works great.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...620&Ne=2000001

[Robber80]

you could do the same thing except if you didn't want to welded it, a lot of people take the column off the orbital and the column peice you are going to sleeve over the splines and use a drill press to drill though both the steering column and the orbital column then put a bolt though it and you are done.

[orangecherokee]

i need to stick my head in my Heep this weekend and get some good pics. I think the "blank" idea will work and have thought about using that. I wasn't too keen on the welded up idea but it doesn't make much sense not too. i can still unbolt the orbital if need be. i'm gonna take some measurements this weekend and post my results up. i should be ordering the final parts next week.

[robselina]

I'll tell you when my pump, shaft and orbital show up next week They're for the scout though...