Finally have the power steering project, almost, done, not without some drama, of course. I pulled out the plugs on that side, then removed the motor mount bolt, took the fan shroud loose, and using the cherry picker with a chain attached to the head, was able to raise the engine enough the get the header back in, without removing the clutch Z-bar. It was a tight fit, but it went in without a struggle or cursing, so that's pretty easy. I set the engine back down, got it all bolted up, put the plugs back in, not without dropping and breaking one, filled the pump reservoir, and checked everything over. Started it up for just a few seconds, to get fluid pumped into the steering gear and shut it off. With the engine off, I was greeted with the sound of air being expelled and oil draining on to the floor. What the frog snacks was going on?
Oil was leaking out of the fittings on both ends of the pressure hose. In those few seconds, it almost emptied the pump reservoir onto the floor. Good thing I have a 30 gallon barrel full of oil dry just for situations like this. Threw a bunch of it under the car, and wiped off what I could that had sprayed around the area. Took the hose off, and tested wit with air pressure, it was leaking out of the fittings on both ends. This is supposed to be hose and fittings for power steering systems, it even said that on the fitting packages and hose description. I have made probably a dozen or so of these hoses in the past, and never had a problem before.
So, being pretty pissed off, I went into town to the Triad store and had them make up a hose. Thursday I put it on, refilled the pump and tried it again. No leaks, but once the engine was started, the steering wheel froze, you couldn't turn it. With the engine off, you could turn the wheel slowly, like on any other power steering system.
I had an idea of what the problem was, but just to be sure, I called the 800 support number for Lares, the steering box rebuilder. Talked to a nice guy there, and he conformed my suspicions, the Saginaw style box like I had has the inlet and outlet ports reversed. On any normal hydraulic system, the small port is the pressure port, the larger one is the return port, but on Saginaw boxes they are reversed. Also, in my defense, there was no information with the box, or labels on the steering box indicating which port is which. After some searching through the Nova assembly manual later, it shows both type of boxes with the hoses routed depending on the type of box.
So, I was able to reverse the hoses, although that made the routing less than ideal, but I'll deal with that later. Started it up again, and after cycling the wheel from lock to lock a dozen or so times, and refilling the pump, it was working like it should.
By then, my cousin had shown up with his broken JD X534 mower with a floppy left rear wheel, so I wasn't able to take it for a test drive. I did take it for a drive today, and it works fine, and is really nice to not have to wrestle it around with the manual box. A great addition to the Nova, I believe.
I still have to address the vibration that starts around 65 mph, which I think I'm going to start with getting the tires rebalanced.