1975 F250 highboy-all bone stock and staying that way.
Power steering ram is leaking badly at the rod/piston seal and its time has come to be replaced/rebuilt.
I see RedHead and Bluetop have rebuilt units available occasionally or they can rebuild yours- kinda pricey though.
Has anyone discovered a DYI rebuild kit or alternatives to Redhead or Bluetop.
Thanks in advance.
Tbruz

 

The only thing you can do is replace the rod seal which I did. If the internal piston seals are OK and the rod is not worn a seal kit will do it. If the rod is worn a new rod seal won't do any good.
If you plan to do the rod seal, you'll need to find an NOS rod seal seal kit. They show up online, ebay, occasionally at least for Bendix cylinders. The seals are special but could possibly be crossed over to something else by a competent hydraulics shop but they'd need the old seals and dimensions to do that. I have part number for the Ford kit (Bendix) at home and believe I and others have posted it here in the past. If the truck has high miles chances are the internals have exceeded their useful life.

Since the cylinder is welded together, to repair internals it has to be cut apart, replace bad parts, and weld back up. Bluetop custom makes the piston, rod and tube if needed but they aren't going to sell you the parts. They must also have an alternative replacement for the rod seals but they won't sell those either and understandably so.

Honestly $310 for a totally rebuilt cylinder is a great price and in most cases that's the best long term solution but I know some have a tight budget. The rubber bushings should be replaced as well because if not it will be a source of free-play in steering.

A simple test of the piston seals is: With lines removed from cylinder and the piston rod disconnected from drag link and in the centered position, hold a thumb tightly over one of the cylinder ports. If you can move the rod back and forth and it stays, the seals are shot, but if there is resistance to pull and rod springs back after pulling it in each direction the seals and cylinder wall is probably OK. Unfortunately part of the demise of these cylinders is (my personal opinion) there is not full fluid exchange back to the reservoir during normal steering because of how long the lines are and passing through the control valve, so much of the same fluid is doing the work and getting contaminated due to wear particles and dirt entering the system by getting dragged in past the rod seal. This was evidenced when I drained my pump the fluid looked pretty good. When I removed cylinder and flushed the old fluid out it looked worse than brown swamp water.

 

Thanks for the info Mark8man; appreciate if you can post up the NOS seal kit PN- found it D4TZ-3A764-A
Thinking that's worth a try before I go full rebuild with Redhead or Bluetop as that approach would likely have to include the power valve and gearbox along with new lines.
Tbruz

 

Yep that's it. I think I recorded the seal dimensions so if you happen to need that to try and cross let me know. I'd think there would still be a lot of these kits sitting around collecting dust.

 

Appreciate if anyone has a lead on this kit or happens to have an extra kit they're willing to let go.
Thanks
Tbruz