here's the power steering mess

Wow, that is a mess....does it work???

yep, it works. with out the loader you can steer it with 1 finger, with the loader it isn't as good as the factory ps tractor I have drove. I'm thinking the pump is not working properly, it has lost a bit of the "power" in the power steering. What I though of was to remove the pump. (and fix the hole in the hood) then get the crank pulley machined to accept a shaft to run a regular hydro pump off the front of the tractor. that way I could have live hydro's for the loader as well. the only problem is the ps pump has a check valve in it and I would have to find some way of installing a check valve for the system to work. I would then hook up a bigger hydro cyclinder. this would clean up the main issue of the ugly pump sticking out of the hood of the tractor. all I can say is somebody had some time on there hands to do all this work. the very helpfull folks at stieners, told me the hydor cyclinder looks like it came off a combine. the orbit valve & flow control valve came off a IH 706. I gotta give them folks at stieners a real thanks, how in the world you can look at this mess and identify the parts is just amazing. no way is it ever going to be a trailer queen, it aint pretty but a good work machine.

Edited by dt1050 - 26 Aug 2012 at 6:54am

hyd chech valves are cheep check either northern or surplus central. although i'm not sure why it needs it the orbital should do all that

What brand is that loader? I just bought a WD45 with that same loader on it. The 45 has factory PS on it and a wide front end.

Is the steering pump running the loader also? If so I can understand why it's loosing power. If not then there is no reason the have a flow control in the loop.
I would run a front pump setup like you mentioned and install a 2 section pump. One section with a built in relief valve for the steering and the second section dedicated to the loader. That way you can fix the hood and have a more modern setup.

You may, or may not need the check valve... but it'd take some more info to determine why it's there in the first place.

The pump you have there, is a vane-type 'variable ratio' pump... and it's 'demand based'... that means the vanes retract when the pressure hits an upper limit.  They also retract when system pressure drops to zero (meaning, flow has been bypassed... i.e., there's no load)... and finally, when the pump speed falls below a certain point.

Typically, a check valve would be used to prevent flow from reversing direction.  They consist of a spring-loaded poppet or ball that is lifted off it's seat when forward pressure rises above the spring's tension level.  As a side-effect, the valve presents a certain amount of 'load' as a result of that pressure drop.  In the case of a vane-type pump, they're frequently used in series with the pump output to 'fool' the pump with just enough backpressure, into staying in a pressure-building state.

If the check valve is on the RETURN side, it's probably because there's a leak in the system somewhere, and it was someone's brilliant plan to keep the pump from emptying itself one-drip-at-a-time onto the shop floor.

here is a pic of the flow valve again and I think were all the hoses go.

I'm not interested in trying to make it original, just more functional and less of a mess. I have a hydro pump & resevior.  i thought if I ran it off a crank driven pulley it would give me more flow and maybe some extra grunt from the power steering. my tie rod ends are shot, so i'm gonna try to find some replacements. I am also going to check the allignment of the tires to see if every thing is running striaght, to make sure nothing is binding. I have this posted on My Tractor Forum as well and they had some Idea's of getting a remote resivior pump so I can close up the hole in the hood. (words can't describe how ugly that really looks).  so I'm going to do some wireing to fix some splices and ad some collor (it's all yellow) that way I can make a diagram, so if there is an issue later it wont be to hard to find. the wires are of good cood condition and ran cleanly, but again, still all yellow. the battery cables and terminals are getting rough so I'll replace them while I'm at it.