1955 Ferguson TO35, Power Steering??

Hello to all and Merry Christmas, I want to thank everyone that has offered me some words of wisdom the past few months regarding my 55 Ferguson. I have installed a new engine in it and it runs great.

I am going to post a BEWARE sign right here about the following upgrade to my tractor.

If you don' t like to see old tractors altered please close this page now.

I will be altering the dash or cowl or whatever you may call it on my old tractor so I can install an Electric Power Steering (EPS) system.

I knew the tractor steered hard when I bought it but I never realized it would wear me out in such a short time. My tractor has a front end loader that adds a lot of weight on the front wheels therefore making it hard to steer.
This project took me about 3 to 4 weeks to complete. I started looking at some old used power steering systems that were on other tractor. I decided I wasn't going to spend the money for
a labor intensive and high maintenance hydraulic unit.
I goggled EPS and I found some 2002 to 2007 Saturn EPS units and a video on how they installed their EPS.
I will be writing in this post and adding pictures as I get time, please bear with me.
First thing is for me to learn how to post pic's on this forum.
 
Be sure to check that front axle bearing,

These old tractors were never designed to carry a
lot of extra weight.

Friend had an axle break, with an overloaded front
end loader. Hit the ground hard!!!!

Very expensive mistake.
 
Currently transferring to35 fel onto MF50 with
stronger axle along with power steering off a 65
diesel, you say electric, as in 6 maybe 12V -- I
wanta hear more.
 
(quoted from post at 15:35:35 12/14/14) Be sure to check that front axle bearing,

These old tractors were never designed to carry a
lot of extra weight.

Friend had an axle break, with an overloaded front
end loader. Hit the ground hard!!!!

Very expensive mistake.
I checked both wheel bearings and the center axle bushing. Bushing was bad and axle wore, so I turned a steel one on the lathe and pressed it in, great fit, but must keep it lubed.
 
This is the Ferguson tractor and the Electric Steering Unit, I will start the steering alteration shortly.
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Be interesting to see how this pans out.

A couple of concerns, how will the Saturn unit handle the load it's about to experience, and how will the standard steering gear handle the extra power being applied to it? My thought that both will be stressed considerably more than they are engineered for.

But, won't know until you try! Maybe do a non destructive mock up to see if it works.

Would you consider a factory TO35 power steering unit and an automotive belt driven pump?
 
(quoted from post at 21:11:10 12/14/14) Be interesting to see how this pans out.

A couple of concerns, how will the Saturn unit handle the load it's about to experience, and how will the standard steering gear handle the extra power being applied to it? My thought that both will be stressed considerably more than they are engineered for.

But, won't know until you try! Maybe do a non destructive mock up to see if it works.

Would you consider a factory TO35 power steering unit and an automotive belt driven pump?
Thanks for the concern, the steering wheel turns the steering rod which turns the ball screw and eventually the wheels.

The electric steering unit will also turn the steering rod and so on. I am hoping the steering parts will handle the stress.
What kind of price would the factory unit cost me.
 
"What kind of price would the factory unit cost me."

You would have to find a used one. Be a good idea to go through it, new seals, etc. Might check Ebay, CL, several salvage yards around, someone on here might can help.

The factory pump would not work on your engine. Factory pump drives off the cam gear, your engine probably doesn't have the block machined to mount it. That's why you would need to mount an automotive pump. There is also a way to borrow some power from the FEL pump if it's going to be a permanent mount.
 
As 2 tractors is doing, it might be cheaper and easier to get a better loader tractor than an early 35. One built with power steering, a solid axle, stronger mounting bosses... the 202's and work bulls were mechanically TO35's leaving the factory ready for a loader.
The torque a Saturn pump and gearing would have to deal with while turning on rough ground with a ton of @#$% in the bucket might not pan out so good... but in the immortal words of Red Green "remember were rootin fer ya, we're all in this together".....
 
(quoted from post at 06:35:03 12/15/14) "What kind of price would the factory unit cost me."

You would have to find a used one. Be a good idea to go through it, new seals, etc. Might check Ebay, CL, several salvage yards around, someone on here might can help.

The factory pump would not work on your engine. Factory pump drives off the cam gear, your engine probably doesn't have the block machined to mount it. That's why you would need to mount an automotive pump. There is also a way to borrow some power from the FEL pump if it's going to be a permanent mount.
My block is actually a 1957 Z134 and it is machined for the pump on the left front/side on the block.
 
I already have the steering unit mounted and I am finishing the dash wiring today.
If the unit does not hold up I will have to purchase a steering shaft and column, a used dash and a steering wheel. I think it is worth it to try the alteration rather then injure my arms and shoulders. Thanks for the input.
 
As you read through my posts you will notice that I am a Dutch-a-fied country person. The way I write a sentence may be hard for some people to understand. If you don't understand something please just ask me.

To start with the steering system has been installed at this time. I am finishing the wiring right now.

I started thinking about installing an EPS (Electric Power Steering) system after trying to drive my tractor around the house. So, I Google d “electric power steering” on the internet.

What I found really excited me so I read everything I could find on line about this subject. I checked ebay and found the steering unit that I am using now. My unit is out of a 2005 Saturn Ion, normally you would need the computer out of the Saturn to help operate the EPS. But there is a small control and rheostat that is listed or ebay that will operate the EPS and it is listed in the same area that the steering units are listed.

My unit cost me $130.00 and the control cost about $70.00. The control comes from Portugal but don't worry this guy ships the controls right away. He will also send you a complete set of instructions.

My control took 4 or 5 days to get to my mailbox.

To start the alteration I removed the the steering wheel and the complete dash housing. Next the steering column was removed from the top of the transmission. The steering rod and screw was not removed. At this time I sucked the old fluid out of the steering box and installed about a quart of new 90 wt oil.

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Next I had to come up with a sleeve that would fit the steering shaft on the tractor and the steering shaft on the Saturn power steering.

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Here is the sleeve I came up with. It started out in life as 2 David Bradley plow rollers. I bored one roller out to .812 to fit the tractor steering shaft. The roller was bored out to .625 to fit on the Saturn steering shaft. Next I welded both rollers together and turned the OD a bit to make it smooth.

I checked the Saturn shaft length and the tractor shaft length and determined that I had to cut off 12.5 inches off the tractor shaft.
I taped up the shaft and the top of the trans to keep the metal chips out. I used my saws all and it was cut off rather quickly.


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Next I placed the sleeve on the tractor shaft and set the steering unit in it. This gave me the length I would need to cut the steering shaft housing.




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While the steering unit was in position I took some measurements so I could cut out the dash housing to fit the steering unit.


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Ok now I fabricated a support for the steering unit. It was made out of .250 aluminum plate.



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The aluminum support plate was designed to bolt on to the dash housing using the two mounting holes for the Tractor Meter in the center of the dash.
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When the steering unit and the control unit were mounted in the dash housing on the work bench I noticed that I had to change the locations of the gauges and the switches.


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I fabricated a cover for the dash housing and cut out mounting holes for the gauges.
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Your doing a good job sir, hope it turns out good for you , we also have a continental Z134 engine and have been wondering what step to take in regards to the power steering and some other points as well..Great work your doing & thanks for sharing your work.
 
(quoted from post at 00:10:15 12/17/14) Your doing a good job sir, hope it turns out good for you , we also have a continental Z134 engine and have been wondering what step to take in regards to the power steering and some other points as well..Great work your doing & thanks for sharing your work.
Thank You,
I have a lot more info to post but this morning I connected the last wire and slowly touched the positive battery cable to the positive post on the battery.
Well there was no smoke or sparks so I turned the key on. The steering control unit clicked and again there was no smoke or sparks.
I grabbed the electric steering units steering shaft and turned it by hand, WOW the front wheels turned left then right.
So it does work, now I must finish up some clean up and then take her out for a spin.
More to come....
 
Let's back up a little, I placed the sleeve on the tractors cut off steering shaft and drilled a hole through the sleeve and the shaft for a roll pin. I then set the electric steering unit in the sleeve and drilled another hole for another roll pin. I removed the steering unit and installed the steering shaft housing that was cut off. I marked the position on the steering shaft housing tube of the top hole in the sleeve. This hole will allow us to connect or disconnect the steering unit from the tractors steering shaft.
This will allow me to install the sleeve and tap the bottom roll pin through the sleeve and the shaft,
I drilled the hole in the steering shaft housing twice as big as the hole for the roll pin.
Now a placed a 1.500 inch radiator hose on the housing tube.
When the steering unit shaft is placed in the sleeve I can tap the roll pin in and then slide the hose up to cover the hole.



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Hello Inno, you did a good job bro saw your video.. Did you encounter any issues with your work after you had done the whole work? Can you also write down or share the materials used if you will..

Also i'm a mechanic by heart but a newbie to tractors, i see what everyone's trying to do or has done which is pretty good work but why not use the whole system from an old chevy truck or oldsmobile etc etc and modify some pulley power steering pumps?
Has anyone thought about that?
 
(quoted from post at 21:19:47 12/17/14)

Hello Inno, you did a good job bro saw your video.. Did you encounter any issues with your work after you had done the whole work? Can you also write down or share the materials used if you will..

Also i'm a mechanic by heart but a newbie to tractors, i see what everyone's trying to do or has done which is pretty good work but why not use the whole system from an old chevy truck or oldsmobile etc etc and modify some pulley power steering pumps?
Has anyone thought about that?


All parts are listed in the postings of the alteration.
The unit is protected by the dash housing for the most part. I cover my tractor or keep it in my work shop.
The regular power steering systems required a pump that ran off of the fan and crank pulleys. And it needed steering unit and hoses and a cylinder to move the tie rod to steer the vehicle.
This is just one unit, a control box and a rheostat and it takes a lot less work to install and you don't have all the rest of that stuff to maintain.

The install is complete and I will keep posting how I did it.
You will not believe how easy it is to steer a tractor with this unit.
 
(quoted from post at 23:19:47 12/17/14)

Hello Inno, you did a good job bro saw your video.. Did you encounter any issues with your work after you had done the whole work? Can you also write down or share the materials used if you will..

Also i'm a mechanic by heart but a newbie to tractors, i see what everyone's trying to do or has done which is pretty good work but why not use the whole system from an old chevy truck or oldsmobile etc etc and modify some pulley power steering pumps?
Has anyone thought about that?

I have had to make a few changes since completing the work. Because I'm not a hydraulics expert by any means, I had undersized the diverter valve so the loader was pretty slow. I put one on with larger ports and that helped out. So far so good, it's been probably 3 years or more since I did the work and no major issues. It's still working well.

I would love to see a video of the electric unit in operation with a loaded up bucket.
 
Next, there were two dash housing supports that connected the dash to the steering shaft housing. I used the right support which also held the choke rod, made it longer and bent it to fit to help support the dash housing.
On the left side I just made a new support and bolted it on. This made the dash housing very sturdy.
Both supports are bolted through a steel tube that is manufactured in the steering unit. See the last picture, the tube is just under the output steering shaft and above the sleeve lying non the workbench.





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(quoted from post at 12:42:48 12/18/14)
(quoted from post at 23:19:47 12/17/14)

Hello Inno, you did a good job bro saw your video.. Did you encounter any issues with your work after you had done the whole work? Can you also write down or share the materials used if you will..

Also i'm a mechanic by heart but a newbie to tractors, i see what everyone's trying to do or has done which is pretty good work but why not use the whole system from an old chevy truck or oldsmobile etc etc and modify some pulley power steering pumps?
Has anyone thought about that?

I have had to make a few changes since completing the work. Because I'm not a hydraulics expert by any means, I had undersized the diverter valve so the loader was pretty slow. I put one on with larger ports and that helped out. So far so good, it's been probably 3 years or more since I did the work and no major issues. It's still working well.

I would love to see a video of the electric unit in operation with a loaded up bucket.

Inno thanks for the reply, i did see your work it's very good and so is the electrical one..

Inno another question, If the tractor is off, the steering wheel won't turn the wheels right as it is no longer connected in the main housing? Or will it still push the oil and turn the wheels while it's turned off?

Let me know will you i'm just trying to see how it functions while tractor on or off.
 
The bonus to using the Char Lynn steering valve is that, yes, you can still steer (although difficult to turn) with the engine off. The only thing lacking is any feedback from the wheels. Which in many cases is not a bad thing. I almost broke a finger last year with my TO35 which does not have power steering when one of the front wheels got on the wrong side of a snowbank when plowing snow.
 
This unit works with the tractor off or on. You must have a power source, (12 volt battery).
My unit has no oil or fluid.
 
The next step is the steering wheel.
The steering wheel attached to the old tractor steering shaft by way of a tapered hole and key way. The new steering shaft has splines and the OD of it is .625. The steering wheel was bored out to remove the tapered hole, that made the ID of the steering wheel .812. I next turned a sleeve with an ID of .625 and an OD of .812. The sleeve was pressed into the wheel and tack welded on one end.
I wanted to make sure the steering wheel was nice and tight and not wobbly. So I welded two .375 x 1 inch x 2 inch pieces of steel to the outside of the steering wheel hub. I then cut out a .250 slice between the two pieces of steel. This makes the hub a clamp that will grip the steering shaft. Since there are no splines in the hub I drilled a small hole through the hub and shaft and tapped in a roll pin.

I added a piece of 1.5 inch ID fuel hose on the steering shaft below the steering wheel.

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Since we added the steering unit I decided to change the dash mounted throttle.
I decided to go with the lever and cable type throttle control.


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I mounted it on the side of the dash housing and adder a piece of aluminum to extend the lever.


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I drilled a small hole in the ball headed bolt that is attached to the friction plate that is under the dash.


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Next I added a cable support to help cable movement.
More alterations to come.
 
You will have to decide where you mount your gauges and switches. I cut the top out of my dash housing and fabricated a cover so I could work on the items under the cover without standing on my head.
My tractor was changed to 12 volt when I bought it. I went over everything and replaced every wire, gauge and switch. This gave me a perfect electrical system to connect my power steering system to.
I had one problem when I started to use the power steering unit.
The instructions said to attach the red wire from the control box to the Ign terminal on the Ign switch. This caused the steering unit to start when I turned the key on but, the unit would shut off when I started the tractor. What I mean by start is that the system was ready to assist you in turning the steering wheel.
I just removed the red wire from the Ign terminal and installed a toggle switch and connected it to the battery. Now I start the tractor and then flip the toggle switch.
The system works fine.
More info to come.
 
This is how the unit looks now. The switches on the dash housing are left to right, the light switch, the power steering on off switch and the knob that adjusts the amount of assist you want.

The steering unit was bought off of ebay, you can find several types of electrical power steering units on ebay. Saturn, GM, and believe Ford makes these units.

I have to secure some wires yet and that should be it.


Thanks for reading my alteration, if you have any questions just ask.
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I had a long drive yesterday with nothing to do but think. So I thought about your conversion and mine. The reason I converted my 202 was that it originally had power steering and someone before I owned it removed the hoses (with a hammer from what I could tell) removed the hydraulic cylinders from the front and disabled the whole thing so that it was just like having manual steering. Most of the parts were still there but they were in really rough shape. The only parts available were from scrap yards and they wanted a lot of $$ for them. So I started looking at alternative methods.
In my case, I had destroyed the steering shaft and worm screw which was in it when I got it because I had to apply way too much torque to the steering wheel to try and make it turn with a load of gravel in the bucket. And keep in mind that I have a backhoe on the back of mine which offsets a lot of the bucket weight. I replaced the steering shaft assembly and within a couple of months I had destroyed the second one. So it was impossible to steer effectively and hard on parts.
With the new setup, much like the original on the 202 it has a hydraulic ram on each side to steer with instead of using input from the steering box on the tractor.
The original power steering on a 35 is a little different in that the hydraulic assist is applied right at the steering box instead of at the front end of the tractor, AFTER the worm screw and directly on the steering sectors (if I remember correctly).

Anyway...........that's a really long way to get to my point. My original thought was "why don't I give this a try as it would be much cleaner/simpler than a hydraulic setup". My answer was, I would still be concerned about tearing up the worm screw.

I admire the ingenuity you have that thinks outside the box. If I'd have listened to half the people I talked to about my conversion I never would have done it. So don't take what I say the wrong way, I tend to over think things.
 
Gosh Inno... if you went on a drive that long as to think of all that stuff... I would have given you the directions to my new place.... and you could check that the cattle watering thing is not froze...
I wonder if all your posts doing that power steering invention is still in YT archives???
 
Nah, I'd rather re-write it.
I don't think you moved to the right place Tony. I did have to move a bit of snow a few weeks ago, and again today but I did it in a light drizzle and ended up being too warm as opposed to being too cold.
Oh, and just west of here in North Dakota (where I was driving) they have absolutely no snow at all!
 
(quoted from post at 08:11:34 12/21/14) I had a long drive yesterday with nothing to do but think. So I thought about your conversion and mine. The reason I converted my 202 was that it originally had power steering and someone before I owned it removed the hoses (with a hammer from what I could tell) removed the hydraulic cylinders from the front and disabled the whole thing so that it was just like having manual steering. Most of the parts were still there but they were in really rough shape. The only parts available were from scrap yards and they wanted a lot of $$ for them. So I started looking at alternative methods.
In my case, I had destroyed the steering shaft and worm screw which was in it when I got it because I had to apply way too much torque to the steering wheel to try and make it turn with a load of gravel in the bucket. And keep in mind that I have a backhoe on the back of mine which offsets a lot of the bucket weight. I replaced the steering shaft assembly and within a couple of months I had destroyed the second one. So it was impossible to steer effectively and hard on parts.
With the new setup, much like the original on the 202 it has a hydraulic ram on each side to steer with instead of using input from the steering box on the tractor.
The original power steering on a 35 is a little different in that the hydraulic assist is applied right at the steering box instead of at the front end of the tractor, AFTER the worm screw and directly on the steering sectors (if I remember correctly).

Anyway...........that's a really long way to get to my point. My original thought was "why don't I give this a try as it would be much cleaner/simpler than a hydraulic setup". My answer was, I would still be concerned about tearing up the worm screw.

I admire the ingenuity you have that thinks outside the box. If I'd have listened to half the people I talked to about my conversion I never would have done it. So don't take what I say the wrong way, I tend to over think things.



Inno your design is very well made in fact i am doing something similar, electric is ok. and thanks to watersteps for your thinking and for sharing all your images and expertise, but in reality with an electric power steering the steering shaft will end up wearing up faster as there will be more high torque now using an electric power steering as it is still pushing the steering shaft same as manually doing it as oppose to the hydraulic cylinder/s which are in front which is way better because it don't involve the steering shaft..

By the way if you don't mind how many hydraulic cylinders did you add in front near the tie rods? I couldn't see correctly on the left side.
 
Hey!! I've been looking through your post, I also have a TO35 with the same kind of front end loader and it steers really hard!! I might do the same and but a Saturn power steering unit, is it still working or how well did it work?
Thanks!
 

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