full hydro steering for street use

[hotrod]

You guys are right, i never really thought about the risk of a wreck, i was thinking more control issues. I wouldnt be able to live with myself either if i hit a family and even hurt them much less kill them. I do plan on driving this on the street so i would like a mechanical connection i suppose.

Originally Posted by itbrokeagain

I was thinking this the other day. I was looking at a large concrete mixer and I was wondering about steering setup. Also what about those big ass cranes? Something with 8 wheel drive and fourwheel steering? I find it hard to believe its all mechanical.

Most mixers, dump trucks or other heavy front axle load trucks have 2 steering boxes, one on each side. the driver side is run mechanicaly (with power steering of coarse) and the other runs off of the fluid going through the first box so they work together. some even have 2 boxes and a hydro assist ram.

[blazerbrad]

I'm not disagreeing with any of the comments stating that full hydro is not the best setup for highway use.......but I do not agree with the reason being it would be more prone to failure. I've spent a lot of time running farm and construction equipment and have never had a catastrophic hydraulic line failure where you instantly loss control. A leak and slow degradation of performance sure, but it was always obvious that something was going wrong well before you completely loss the hydraulics. It was also pretty rare that something failed. Started riding in tractors when I was a little kid and then started running them, and spent many 60 hour weeks running dozers and other construction equipment during the summer when I was in school and only saw a couple of hydraulic issues.

Nobody here has seen a failure on a trailrig that had the potential to cause an accident if they were running down the road at the time? I know I have. Ever seen a front wheel bearing seize on a Jeep while driving 55 mph down the highway? How about a tierod end fall apart? Or maybe the tire, wheel, brake, and axleshaft leave the rear axle on a D44........made a good spark show but fortunately none of the above caused any issues. That doesn't even count the number of failures that happened on the trail towards the end of the day that could of easily of held off for another 30 minutes and happened on the road back to the campground.

Again, not saying you should use full hydro on the street by any means. But also that a quality hydraulic system is no more likely to fail and cause an accident as a mechanical system.

[kentuckytwostep]

Everyone seems to forget that damn near all of the "start, steer, stop" systems on ALL vehicles could fail due to one link in those systems. Whether it's a hydraulic hose, steel line or a bolt, anything can fail.

[Flxratd]

Originally Posted by kentuckytwostep

Everyone seems to forget that damn near all of the "start, steer, stop" systems on ALL vehicles could fail due to one link in those systems. Whether it's a hydraulic hose, steel line or a bolt, anything can fail.

not forgeting anything because i have seen it all when it comes to poorly maintained peices of s@#t running down the road in my 22 years as a professional technician just saying an arguement could be alot easier supported when a failure has accured if the "factory" system is still in place. i personally dont care what someone does as long as they are not pointed at me when something happens.