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Hydraulic Power Steering
If your tractor doesn't have enough power in its power steering pump, or if the belt squeals all the time, you'll be interested in an idea Torrey Fiorini, Turlock, Calif., came up with on his 1979 Massey Ferguson 275 tractor.
Fiorini says the tractor's power steering pump never did have enough power and he had a
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Hydraulic power steering TRACTORS Miscellaneous 9-4-11 If your tractor doesn't have enough power in its power steering pump, or if the belt squeals all the time, you'll be interested in an idea Torrey Fiorini, Turlock, Calif., came up with on his 1979 Massey Ferguson 275 tractor.
Fiorini says the tractor's power steering pump never did have enough power and he had already replaced a couple pumps before he realized that he had a more serious problem. Then he came up with the idea of obtaining the pressure he needed to drive the power steering pump from the auxiliary hydraulic system.
"Many tractors, including most of Deere's, are factory-built that way but Massey uses separate pumps to drive each hydraulic system," Fiorini explains.
The first step in the conversion was to take the power steering pump off and throw it away. He then bought a 1-gal. hydraulic flow diverter valve which "splits" 1 gal. per minute off the 24-gal. per minute auxiliary hydraulic line. He mounted the valve on a metal plate under the tractor seat.
"You have to use the splitter valve. If you just put in a T-valve, the fluid will take the easiest route through the system and might possibly damage your hydraulics. This way you can still use your hydraulics and notice virtually no affect," says Fiorini.
A hydraulic line runs from the splitter valve to the inputside of the power steering drive and a line comes back out the other side to the auxiliary lines. Fiorini says the steering drive unit is so small, 1 gal. a minute flow is more than enough to drive it, although on a larger tractor you may need as much as a 2-gal. per minute diverter valve.
Parts for the steering conversion cost about $120 for the diverter valve, bushings to connect to the steering drive, hydraulic lines and other miscellaneous parts, "A new pump would have cost about $400 and that wouldn't have solved the problem," Fiorini notes.
Besides the Massey tractor, Fiorini has also performed the hydraulic "surgery" on a skid steer loader. "It'll work on any power steering or other hydraulic system that's underpowered," he notes.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Torrey Fiorini, 11800 N. Sycamore, Turlock, Calif. 95380 (ph 209 667-9351).
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