Installing power steering – Part 2

Well, this turned out to be a bit of a harder job than it might have been. So let’s look at the positives first.

· The kit goes on, and it works.

· Paul Heystee is very helpful with answering questions by email.

Now some of the negatives.

· The construction of the steel brackets which hold the pump on is woeful.

· It took three deliveries to get all the bits.

· The original delivery contained no instructions for fitting it all together.

After the initial delivery I emailed Paul about the instructions, and he emailed me back a document which contained fitting instructions, which unfortunately referred to an earlier version of the kit and didn’t match the bits I had.

After more emails, I eventually assembled from the Heystee web site the collection of photos on the previous page. These photos aren’t available through menus (at least not that I could find) and have to be got to through links that Paul sends.

In one of his emails Paul mentioned that the banjo bolts to fit the hoses to the ram hadn’t been shipped, and they arrived by mail a bit later.

In a later email Paul advised that the wrong pump had been shipped, and he was shipping the correct pump. On the bright side, he told me to keep the original pump, which I sold on eBay and defrayed a small part of the dollar cost of the exercise.

OK, let’s get to the photos of how to put it together.

This is a picture of all the bits of the kit as they arrived in the box.

This shows the aluminium collar which fits between the fan and the top pulley. This moves the fan forward, and leaves room for the second belt which drives the pump.

These are the two holes which need to be drilled in the drop iron to mount the fixed end of the ram.

This shows the bracket fixed to the drop iron, and the ram bolted to the bracket.

The passenger side end of the ram (which replaces the drag link) terminating in the ball joint assembly.

The drag link / ram ball joint assembly.

An overview of how the drag link replacement fits together.

The biggest issue I found with this is that all the threads are right handed, so there’s no way to adjust the centering of the steering wheel except by removing the steering wheel and re-centering it. Which I did. And then when I put the steering wheel back, it dislodged the rubber wheel on the indicator switch, and I had to remove and disassemble the indicator switch to get the rubber wheel back on. Objectively, it only took about 30 minutes, but subjectively it was a lot longer.

The replacement pulley system. It comes in two bits, a replacement for the lower fan pulley and a second dual pulley which locates onto the primary pulley with two pins.

I was a bit concerned about getting the starter dog off, but I put a big adjustable spanner onto the dog, rested the other end of the spanner against the chassis, and turned the engine over with the starter. No problems J.

There was another concern here, when I had a look at the bottom radiator hose it was leaking a bit, and it was also long enough that it was occupying the space where the pump had to be mounted. I ended up taking the hose off (always a pain in the bum, because you have to drain the cooling system and try to conserve as much expensive coolant as possible) and cutting the hose down to a more reasonable size.

The starter dog replaced. It looks dirty in the photo, I should have repainted it while I had it off.

The fan belt replaced.

This is the recommended site for the fluid reservoir. After I had it installed, I worked out that there was no easy way of getting the hoses from the reservoir to the pump. . .

. . . so I relocated the reservoir to the interior of the passenger side guard, which works well.

The site where the pump is to go. It bolts onto the timing cover, using the two timing cover bolts which I have taken off in the photo.

The pump fitted on. This was a major pain in the bum.

The welding on the mounting bracket is probably the worst I have ever seen – certainly not a professional job, more like the apprentice’s first attempt. The plate bolted to the timing cover wasn’t square to the plate holding the pump, so I had to space things out using washers to get the pulleys parallel to each other and the belt running true. I had the thing on and off about four times trying to get it all to work out right.

I also found out the pulley on the replacement pump was smaller than the pulley originally supplied, so the supplied belt was too big. I had to go and buy another belt, which was only $6, but just another aggravation.

This was another issue. As supplied, the high pressure hose came straight out of the side of the pump, right into the space the battery occupies. I got a right angle bend from Pirtek, and assembled the pump as shown.

As you can see from the photo below, even with the bend the hose fitting intruded in to the battery space. I got around this by buying another, smaller battery. Another $120. This has reduced me from 760 CCA with the big battery to 430 CCA, but as the motor turns easily and starts first time this shouldn’t be an issue.

On the bright side, I had to buy a battery for the LWB I’m starting to restore, so now I’ve got a battery ready for the LWB.

This shows the hoses to the ram. You’ll note I put some split tube over them, to reduce any chafing that might take place as they move.

More photos to follow of the front end after it’s tidied up.