What do yall think about the pros and cons of each?

Thanks,
Justin Ray

full hydro

pros:

no steering box
less linkage
no bump steer
more power


cons:
not street legal



ram assist

pros:

more power


cons:

more complicated
bump steer

Do you lose steering with full hydro if the motor stalls? I am seriously thinking of going full hydro and I just want to know what I am getting into.

no but it is real hard to turn with the motor off

mines actually real easy to turn with the motor off. it's a handful on the road though, too twitchy. I think I got the wrong displacement orbital valve.

Easy

Originally posted by EasyXJ
mines actually real easy to turn with the motor off. it's a handful on the road though, too twitchy. I think I got the wrong displacement orbital valve.

Easy

ya it sounds that way

You have to turn several strg. wheel revolutions to turn with the engine off, it is a very small manual pump.
I wouldn't use full hydro on a street truck, it gets tiring to drive for any length of time.
Off road it is hard to beat, endless travel is no problem, it never binds, the strg. wheel never spins and takes your thumbs off, no pitman arms, steering column, gearbox, rag joints...
It has lots of power and other than the pump (if you use a P.steering pump) it is all industrial quality and pretty foolproof once it is dialed in.
It can do some strange things at times, Once I broke a ft axle joint and it popped the ball joints apart and bent the tierod badly, it really screwed up the toe-in. All the way home (45 miles on the hwy) I had to continuouously turn to the right, hand over hand constantly, occasionally we would get to a big sweeping lefthanded curve and I could rest and hold the wheel still, then I have to start turning again. PITA...The pump was so hot the oil would boil out of the resivour as fast as I could add it.
We made it back though...Of course the wife was screaming that we were gonna die all the way back (as usual).

Thanks for all the info, I think that since I already built a crossover steering arm and have linkages for my axle, which steers fine, but I would just like more power, I think I'll probably go with hydro assist. Maybe if I was starting from scratch I'd go full hydro.

join the rest of the crowd. that is the way we all started with ram assist and sooner or later when you get over the fact that you just built your cross over you will ditch it all and build the full hydro. :D

What Orbital valves are yall running, I've seen that most are running Charlyne valves, what about DanFross hydrostatic valves, are they the same type of orbital valves?