Latham Full Hydraulic Help

[Waveform]

I just purchased a 1990 Regal velocity 230. It has a 454mag and bravo1 along with single ram full hydraulic steering. It had sat for over a year, and upon me starting it yesterday, I discovered the filter looks to be original and on the low pressure side, it uses a stock style GM pump with no external resivoir; the pump needed quite a bit of fluid, it must have been run dry, and it is noisy as hell. So I figure a new pump and filter are in oreder, but when I talked to Tom at Latham he said the system should have allways had an external resevoir and I need to add one. The pump along with everything else looks to be 100% original, with no signs of there ever being a resevoir. Along with no resevoir listed on the original latham kit and Regal install instructions that came with the boat paperwork.

Do I have to add one, what is the cheapest way of going about it, and is it a regular car/truck pump I can just pickup at my local autoparts store? Or do I need to just really flush the system and see if it quiets down. There were several near empty bottles of Seastar power steering/trim fluid, everything I've read says its supposed to use Mercron II.

[Rookie]

You're right filter does go on the low pressure side. I have a friend that had a Latham single system that did not use a reservoir either and he had no problems. But I do understand what Tom was saying that you need one. One cylinder will be unequal displacement and the pump reservoir will have to be balanced to be almost empty or almost full depending on way you are turning. I would fill it up run it and see how close to the edge you are. Obviously it was ran like this, just might not be optimal.

[Dave M]

I ran a single ram full system on my previous boat without a reservoir. No issues.

My current boat has ITS and no reservoir. I don't know if any ITS setups include a reservoir or not?

[kawzracn442]

I have a custom dual cylinder system that I designed and built myself. I run the stock pump with no external reservoir and it works perfectly. As long as your heat exchanger is functioning and your system is completely bled out with the pump at the correct level, then you should have no problems at all.

[Waveform]

I figured better safe than sorry, as the existing P/S pump was shot. Got one off a merc racing 502 with resevoir and cap welded on, and all fittings for $250.