350 Power Steering

[cdunn]

I recently purchased an early model 350(straight) dozer. It has power steering, but as I began to tear it down for an engine rebuild (which I knew I had to do when I bought it); I found the steering system was not and had not been working for some time. Some of the lines were even disconnected, which means there was no hyd. fluid in the system. That probably means the pump is toast, right? If I didn't want to go to the expense of repairing the system, would one option would be to remove it? If so, dealing with big hole in the front engine cover, where the pump was located, would be an issue. I'm thinking of cutting a plate of quarter inch sheet metal, locating the bolt holes using the pump base as a pattern, making a gasket and bolting it onto the cover, removing the fluid tank and lines and then leaving the cylinders on the levers as they are. Would doing this have any adverse effect on steering other than the levers being a little harder to pull. Any comment or advice would be appreciated. I'm not planning on a restoration, but plan on using the dozer on my tree farm.

[Lavoy]

Put oil in the pump and see what happens, you never know.
Lavoy

[Stan Disbrow]

Hi,

I used to have a 350 without power steering, and I can't honestly say that there was any difficulty in steering the thing. It's really not much different than steering the 420. I have no trouble when running a long day.

Perhaps it matters if one is running long days each and every day. I never operated a machine as my primary job, although some of the personal projects managed to make it seem like it was!

Is there something significantly different with the steering mechanism between a manual steer and a power steer 350? I always thought of it as being a booster to the same steering mechanics....

later!

Stan