Subject basically says it all, who has mounted their hydro assist ram off of the diff cover, and any problem with bolts loosening/ shearing etc.
This is on a 60, so it oughta hold, just wondering.

My hydroassist twisted my 3/4" thick steering arms like they were putty, I doubt that the cover itself has enough meat to hold. I bet it would deform the cover and possible push it into the ring gear. You might want to try some type of mount like mine possibly with a little more offset....

Here is a picture, hope this helps:

Works fine, Do it.

Just make sure you do it well. We have a 2.5" full hydro cyl pushing 42's off the cover ...no probs yet.

Eric

I would say it could work fine I would prolly put some more material on hte thick diff covers just to be safe...


only problem I can think of is just that the ram and cover would be mounted together so its one more step to removing the cover...but thats it

I've seen them mounted off of the Avalanche guards (Steve Fox, CK5) and off of heavy after market covers (built from plate basically) but never on the stock cover. Like was said, maybe with a reinforcement it would be ok.

Here is a pic of my setup, no problem with bolts shearing at all, but I do have to tighten the bolts after a good trail. Not sure what your project is but if you can mount it to the top of the housing area I would go that route, saves the hasstle of crawling under your rig to tighten the cover bolts, for my application mounting to the rock ring was about the only location that would work the way I wanted, but no problems so far.


http://coloradok5.com/temp/uavhydro1.jpg

Thanks for the info. I welded mine on to the cover in about the same spot coloradok5 did, on the ring gear bulge near the top. I figure that's the strongest spot on the cover for this kind of load. It's a thick 60 cover and a 2x8 tie rod style ram. All is well so far, but I haven't wheeled it yet.
I think I'm just going to buy another cover and weld a strap to it, weld the tab on the strap and throw it in the trail box for just in case. It'd suck to rip that sucker out on the trail.

One more hydro question. If I understand right, the ram only works when actuated by the spool valve in the box- so if a pitman arm or drag link heim broke, I wouldn't be able to limp off the trail with just the ram steering it?

Anybody ever make a ujoint press for use with a steering cylinder? Log splitter? Margarita blender? :rolleyes:

I wouldn't be able to limp off the trail with just the ram steering it?
I have seen a guy break his steering box off his frame and he drove about 100 yards with just the Rockram.
Problem was, he turned the steering wheel about 1 and 1/2 turns before the ram moved and then it would go all the way to full lock.
He just sorta bounced from side to side till he got to the end of the obstacle.

Originally posted by Slagburn
Anybody ever make a ujoint press for use with a steering cylinder? Log splitter? Margarita blender? :rolleyes:

Actually I suggested to Chris that he make a porta-power out of it to straighten his cage after a good roll without having to drive out with his neck bent. :D :flipoff2: