Power Steering

Well .. I might add PS to my Spacevan but not electric.
I want to do it old type Power Steering Box, tan and PS Pump.
Will that be a world's first for a Dodge Spacevan?
Dinesh C
 
It would be difficult fitting power steering to a steering box set up but fairly straight forward with an electric version, but I cant think of anyone who has done it. There is a guy in Holland who has fitted a rack and pinion set up but has posted his project on Facebook, and I don't do Facebook.
 
Thanks Panky,
Its pity I also don't do facebook to see that dutch commer.
But steering rack version is not my choice.
Well I will let you know when I do the modification on PS and although I am in to electrical and electronics i want to have the steering box version against the electric.
May be its difficult but if you do it it will be much reliable in our conditions.
Dinesh C
 
My old Peggy now has power steering. Sid sent the steering column off and it came back all ready to go, you just connect a pos and neg wire. Works a treat apparently and cost around £1k (I think).
 
Hello everyone. OK so Management would like Power Steering fitted to Pootle and I'm casting around to see folk's ideas. From initial look-see it seems that electrical system would be the way to go so a unit from a Prius or Corsa or Clio all seem possibles. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences? I don't have any great worries about the mechanics of doing it but would prefer to get a spare steering column and hack that and then simply swap out Pootles original. Does anyone have a steering column they might sell for my experiments?
 
This doesn't seem to expensive. Might need a bit of fettling to make it fit a Commer or the details in the listing could give you some ideas.

 
That looks the sort of think I'm thinking of. I have been having a look around and the Prius gearbox setup looks a good possibility and I now know how it works;
On these systems there is normally a vehicle speed signal to the steering ECU so that assist varies with speed. On the kit above the knob has been added to give some adjustment of sensitivity given lack of speed input. On the Prius controller, it seems that, if no speed is present, it uses sensitivity corresponding to about 40mph - so when Pootle is flying along then! On ebay a Prius actuator and ECU is about £50 so might just take a punt and try to find an old steering column to lash something up....
 
A guy in the Netherlands has fitted a corsa set up to his commer.
I've got a Skoda Citigo column and motor to play with one day
 
The Corsa setup is cheaper and less powerful than the Prius one I think. To make it work it needs the little controller box with the knob which mimics the vehicle speed. The knob in this system sets steering assist power by mimic-ing a fixed speed so you can adjust it to best suit yourself. The box uses a simple oscillator to do this but it is a bit crude. The Prius unit doesn't need a speed signal and defaults to assumìng a speed of 43mph supposedly so is fixed sensitivity. To feed speed into the Prius controller you need to send a CAN message to it - more tricky but much of my 'day job' is designing and programming CAN electronics on satellites so I could look at adding that if needed.... could even feed it with a speed signal I guess? That would be odd - a Commer fitted with a CAN network!
 
Well i bought a Prius assembly that looks good. Will check it all works at the weekend but really need a commer steering column next...
 

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