I am in the process of designing my new buggy with a buddy of mine. WE are college kids on tight budgets but with some innocative ideas. We are shooting for a 1 seater in the 1500# range running 35" krawlers on D-44s. weight is gonna be a real issue and thigs are really gonna be tight so we thought about running full hydro to simplify things.

Again money is tight.....

So we were thinking of pulling the pitman arm off a saginaw box and just having the box ported and using it for an orbital valve to run to a ram. Has anyone tried this? If you can port a box for ram assist, why not just go full ram instead of assisting?

It doesnt have to be super powerful as we aren't turning huge tires, nor are we going to be competing in it.

The ram would not move until you got the box turned all the way to the stop and then it would move full speed to the end of it travel. Then you would have to turn the box all the way to the other stop to get it back and hope you time it right to get it to stop somewhere close to the middle. I honestly think it would be more controllable to run with NOTHING connecting the steering wheel to the front axle. Then at least you would just bounce off the trees on the side of the trail....

if your weight is going to be so low then you might be fine with just the sag box. I dont know if the box would push enough fluid to do full hydo with it. but like you said if weight is that big of an issue regular steering should be fine with that little weight and on top of that hydro stuff is heavy.

If you are still going to use a saginaw box you wont be saving nothing but the weight of the pitman arm and drag link. Probably 20lbs at the most. Stick with the basic cross over steering and loose the weight of the ram and extra lines. Would probably equal out to about the same amount.

Originally posted by madmarx
The ram would not move until you got the box turned all the way to the stop and then it would move full speed to the end of it travel. Then you would have to turn the box all the way to the other stop to get it back and hope you time it right to get it to stop somewhere close to the middle. I honestly think it would be more controllable to run with NOTHING connecting the steering wheel to the front axle. Then at least you would just bounce off the trees on the side of the trail....

True, true. I watched a guy, last year, on Lower 2 break his steering box off of the frame. He drove the last 100 yards using just his Rock Ram. He probably drove about 300 yards going that 100 yards because he just kept driving back and forth from side to side. :D

Dam i was hoping to do the same thing. i just havent got that for into the built yet. My box is to far back on the frame now. Sense i moved the axle 6 inches froward. The bolt hole for the pitman arm is now lined up with the axle tub. Plus to much shit to go around.:mad:

What would happen if you 'fixed' the ouput shaft of the saginaw? Would the hydraulics get the full force all the time then?

just use a 3 way hydaulic valve ,,,who needs a wheel :flipoff2:

Me :flipoff2:

What would happen if you 'fixed' the ouput shaft of the saginaw? Would the hydraulics get the full force all the time then?

Nope, just like d.d.machine said, that would just turn it into a variable 3-way valve. You'd have steering with no center and no position reference, might as well adapt a skid steer handle rather then a steering wheel.

These type power steering boxes are load sensitive, not position sensitive. Get a orbital valve if you want full hydro.
CP