Steering wanders on the street 165

I just got done replacing the bushings in the frame, tie rods and drag link. The steering arm was wore, so we welded it up and machined it back down to size. Everything is tight. I also rebuilt the steering cylinder.

Now it almost seems worse on the road than it did with all the loose parts. It takes a lot of movement of the wheel to get the steering cylinder to engage. If I try to tighten that up by tightening the set screw I loose power steering. Its hard to imagine that its suppose to be that way. Looking for some more places to look for problems. Thanks

Sorry, this is a MF 165 Diesel, 1973.

Check tire pressure that could cause it. Not knowing MF power steering system but does it have a centering valve which if it does it maybe not working right.

Did you set toe in?

I have 35 pounds in the fronts, and 20 in the rears. As far as toe, I never moved the front tires when I disconnected the old tie rods. I adjusted the new to fit right back like it was, assuming it was right. I know thats not the right answer

I looked up Toe adjustment in my service manual. It says zero to 9/16 toe in. I will check that.

I would not assume it is set, please post back your measurements.

I'll bet you need BOTH cylinder spool valve link ends and pins. When these parts are worn the centering mechanical adjustment has to be so loose to get the valve to move for steering assist. Will cause the exact problems you describe..

I will measure Toe, and check the linkage to the steering cylinder. I remember it having some wear. the bad thing is my property is about 6-7 miles from
my house, and I have to drive it on the road to get it home to work on it. Right now it is a little dangerous to drive on the street. I may disable the
power steering by tightening the set screw all the way in to take the slop out of the steering.

I think the steering set-up is pretty much the same as on my MF65 Mk2 - and I had the same problems you do on the road after I had been messing with the power steering set-up. It was fine in the field, but once opened up on the road, life got kind of interesting and unpredictable

Whatever is printed in the MF manual they should have underlined, coloured in red, and put in italics as every adjustment is really, really, sensitive to being touched. Dieseltech is right about wear in the two ends on the spool valve adjustment, but my tractor has a bit of wear there, and I was forever fiddling trying to get it sorted.

What finally did the trick was to screw in the tapered screw adjustment on the top of the pedestal one quarter turn at a time until the 'wobble' went. Only after that did I start looking at the turnbuckle spool adjustment.

What was happening was that I had given too much slack on the tapered adjustment to get good power steering - fine in the field, but once on the road the movement of the front wheels due to change in camber was kicking in the spool valve, which then reacted, and threw the steering in the other direction, which then made the system react, and throw the steering in the other direction, which . . . . . etc.

You should be able to get a 'happy balance' between lack of wobble and some assist on steering, but don't expect these old systems to be like modern PAS on modern vehicles (apologies if there is a sound of granny sucking an egg).

HTH

I disabled the power steering by turning in the set screw all the way to get the slack out of the steering and was able to get the tractor back home. It helped a lot but still wandered a little. What I found was the splines on the steering shaft are loose on the arm that slides over them. I took some .003 shim stock and put that in the splines. It did tighten it up some. I also took the little actuating arm off the cylinder and welded the holes up and re drilled them. I think those splines will have to be dead tight though. That may be hard to do.

I also measured Toe, and it was zero. So I set it at 1/2" Toe-in. The book says 0 - 9/16".

I took it for a drive and it was way better but still did some wandering.

1/2" is ok if you are on dirt all the time, 1/8" to 1/4" if you have to drive some on paved roads.