What are you planning for a pump, engine driven or electric?

Jetskidrewski,

OEM Merc 496 pump, which is engine driven.

Thanks. Brad.

Damn wish I knew, I was going to do a dual helm but never did. I have steering pump and helm unit I could have sold ya.

Dan,

I appreciate the offer, but the OEM pump provides plenty of pressure and volume, and, honestly, it probably would have been more work than it’s worth, trying to sort out the serpentine belt in the absence of the PS pump, not to mention the ProCharger install bits that somewhat rearrange OEM configuration.

Thanks. Brad.

Guys,



Transom hardware final installed. Sealed with 4200.

Baby steps.

Thanks. Brad.

Guys,

Been a while since I had any progress on this front, but I FINALLY got my bits back from powder coat…





Finally got the helm mounted. The steering wheel is only secured well enough for the photo op, and will be removed, along with the column, until I get the hoses pulled to length. But I can now finalize the hose connections to the transom bulkhead fittings at least. The high pressure feed and low pressure return will have to wait to be cut to final length until the engine is back in, and I’ll want to detach the hoses from the orbital valve after they are cut to blow them out.

I have too many plates spinning….

I also had this powder coated, then dropped it off with the vinyl shop for some lettering….




Thanks. Brad.

Guys,

More baby steps….




I made a standoff to shore up the hydraulic lines going to the bulkhead fittings. Nice and secure now. Yes. I mis-located it before, not realizing how wide the hose tie-downs would stack up, and they collided with the exhaust tip. There are a couple of ghost holes I will have to fill in with 4200. Dang it. All in due time.






I had to make a couple of new brackets for mounting the power steering reservoir and catch can. All the aluminum parts will come off and go out for black anodize, hopefully with a customer’s job, so they can pay for it.





The hydraulic kit’s power steering reservoir forced me to rethink this. The ProCharger kit uses the front lift ring as a mounting point for the intercooler. This entire conglomerate of stuff is all mounted to this, for the most part; intercooler, reservoir and catch can. I had to wait until I had the engine in the boat to install the intercooler this last spring after the engine rebuild. This way allows me to not have to do that. I had to bend the link a bit so the shackle would not hit the intercooler. After the engine goes back in, I can just remove the link, install the kit-supplied step washer and cinch the intercooler in place.

Pretty much just waiting for some decent weather at this point, so I can pull the boat out of the shop, rig everything up to run the engine on the stand, next to the boat, all wired and plumbed in to the various systems on the boat, to check for any leaks (the whole reason the engine came out in the first place). I’ll have to link the power steering incoming and outgoing lines, and then finalize them to the helm after engine installation.

Thanks. Brad.

Are those hydraulic steering line fittings crimped on or hand assembled?

Ryan,

Hand assembled, as supplied with the kit from Hardin. I got a length of hose, ten fitting assemblies and a link to a YT video on how to do it.

Thanks. Brad.

Interesting. Its been a while, but when I converted my Jeep to full hydraulic steering it was not recommended to use hand assembled fittings and I actually saw at least 1 hand assembled line blow first hand.