Power steering out, hats off to the old schoolers

Also you must remember that a truck with failed power steering will feel much more difficult to manouver as turning the wheel means having to manually move the hydraulic rams at each end of the rack which will still have oil in even though it is no longer pressurised.
Steering a truck with no power steering at all fitted is still a laborious task but not so bad as only the resistance caused by the weight of the truck pressing the tyres to the road surface has to be overcome.

 

Right you are. I was like a bad dream, also No air seats nor air ride. Almost everything in the bunk came forward and landed on the floor. Some under your feet. And everyone was in a COE because a 45ft and COE were the longest thing you could drive. I was in a COE over 15 years before I got my first hood. It was an underpowered Pete, But it was still a hood..

 

Funny, i've NEVER seen a truck with rack and pinion steering..every truck i've ever driven had the old fashined little black box....but you're right anyway. he said he disconnectd the pump from the box, so that would reduce the problem a little bit. The real problem is the size of the steering wheel and the gear ratio in that box though.

I drive an old volvo and i'm on another forum where people talk about doing high performance modifications to them. I always see people do manual steering conversions to get more horsepower, which is bad enough since it's not a lot of gain. But most of them are disconnecting the steering rack from the pump, draining all of the oil but leaving some for lubrication, and running a hose from one end of the rack to the other. I've never driven one but I just have to roll my eyes every time i see it mentioned. The better modification is to actually put a manual rack in it, but no modern volvo ever had a manual rack....big modifications required.......

 

1) Freightliner has rack-and-pinion available, which i think is amazing.


2) What i don't get is why newer trucks just don't have the positive caster settings as in older trucks----if you're going 55-75 mph and the power steering goes out, then you don't need much p/s at that speed anyways.

If the P/S goes out at lower speeds, then the ability to steer is not as crucial because you can stop sooner.

Am i missing something here?

 

Well ####, i didnt know that.

I dunno what the caster setting would do but its probably to keep people from driving around with broken p/s boxes lol.

Its friggin hard to maneuver with broken power steering, thats what!

 

####! the memories are coming back to haunt me! That same afore mentioned 1971 White Freightliner also didn't have an air seat, had that Bostrom Butt and Back Destroyer. It did have the floor mounted compression release, but was addicted to starting fluid, and I well remember one winter day on I40 just out of Little Rock, when the can of starting fluid rolled under that Bostrom. Lucky there was no explosion, or fire, but I did come out with a hell of a headache!!!!!!!

 

We had an old two axle International cabover pulling a set of joints with some sort of a shock absorber mounted drivers seat that would beat you to death when it was empty. We used it for a spare truck when our regular trucks were in for repairs.

It was pretty new for this conversation being a 1977 but the truck was very odd compared to all the truck & pup trailers we normally drove.

But anyway, I had a similiar incident where a mechanic left a can of wd-40 under the seat which later in my shift spewed out a huge cloud of white mist after puncturing it with my seat.

Later that day, the night shift driver ragged on me for not doing a better job of cleaning up the cab and than went on to hit a two thousand pound bull on a dark country road. Ground round all over the highway.
Truck went straight to the junk yard.
Yeah, memories to last a lifetime.

 

You oughtta do that even with power steering. Cranking on the wheel while the truck is stationary is hard on everything between the pavement and the steering gearbox...tires, tie rods, pitman arm, etc....

Just 'cuz the wheel turns doesn't mean you should turn it.

 

Agreed.

Although my post was in reference to maneuvering a loaded truck back in the day when no powersteering was common place. Very few drivers had the strength necessary to turn the wheel while sitting still with a load on. Including me. You had to keep the truck moving if you wanted to turn the wheel.