Would this work? Running manual steering with a dedicated PS pump for the hydro ram. i dunno where i would mount the orbital valve where it would still be able to run through to the rest of the steering system???

the first question to come to mind is why bother?
the second is you will need some kind of give in the reaction valve to tell it how hard to pull, I dunno where to get that exept in a ps box. is it possible to disable to cylynder in a ps box somehow???

Old IH trucks (pre-67) with PS had this setup and the ram had it's own pitmen arm and if you really reefed on the wheel it wound bend it

Old Mustangs had this setup as well.

it's kinda nice because if the sysem fwaks up you just disconect it and you can make it home ealsy, just with out power assist

I've been running a manual box with hydro assist (1-3/4" ram on the axle) for over a year now. It works GREAT! It's basicly full hydro that's street legal. NO stress on the frame, all the work is done on the axle. The steering gear and pitman arm just give you position feedback, the ram does all the work.

Sweet manufacturing makes a stand alone valve body. Just mount it between the manual steering gear and the steering wheel. It's just the same thing you find in a power box witout the assist inside the box! Willwood also makes a valve body, but theirs cost twice as much.

http://www.sweetmfg.biz/whatdoing3.asp?what_id=4

The bottom one on that page (standard unit) is the one I have. The top unit is the a new light weight $$$$$ one. You can get the standard one for about $260 from online race car shops.

The different numbers (.185, .200 etc) is the torsion bar, and lets you select how much resistance you fell before the hydro kicks in. A .185 is a standard size t-bar for most GM boxes and would give you a light one hand steering! Most race shops carry the heavier ones (.200,.220) since race cars really don't want one finger steering at 100 mph! :) But they can order any one you want.

So you are just running a PS pump to power the ram and using the manual box as a back up/ directional imput - do you think it would be possible to put a flow divider on the output of my PS (gm) pump so one channel goes to the PS box and one goes to the servo, so that the pitman arm and the ram would be hydro assisted, or could you just cap the hydro ports on the PS box and run everything through the servo???

Matt

okcrawler, i've been working on putting together a kit for the same type of setup. Even planned on usein gthe same Sweet spool valve.
If you wouldn't mind i'd sure like to talk to you about it.