Series 3 Electric Power Steering

Dear...God; I am in awe. Smashing job, mate; really. But in reality, I am thinking of buying a set of dumbels, as my daughter will need a bit of beefing up before she can steer my old girl, and this project, while wonderful, is way, way beyond my engineering "skills".

I was sent this link by another forum member.
Electronic Power steering, offered by Jake Wright Land Rovers. Looks pretty neat. Completely hidden on a Series 3 behind the dash.

https://www.jakewright.com/news/2020/november/land-rover-classic-series-power-steering

Thoughts?

<Edit - I just realised this is posted on another thread>

BaldRick84 said:

I was sent this link by another forum member.
Electronic Power steering, offered by Jake Wright Land Rovers. Looks pretty neat. Completely hidden on a Series 3 behind the dash.

https://www.jakewright.com/news/2020/november/land-rover-classic-series-power-steering

Thoughts?

<Edit - I just realised this is posted on another thread>

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I think its very expensive, I will be doing mine this year in the summer but with the Steve Parker kit (I have a SII)

It looks like it's been thought out and with probably good componentry. Bet you it'll be up near 3k, fitted. Great but out of my league, I think. I was really hoping for a sort of bolt on assistance system like an old Massey might have. Electronics and modern technology seem redundant or unnecessary in a Series, to me. A straightforward ram, bolted into the system which makes it 30-50% easier would suit me. The old girl's only going to be doing 50, after all.

I looked at the bolt on Massey kits, they are now sold via agri spares places but they are sourced from a power steering company in Turkey. They are very similar to the Heytee set up (or for that matter a Corvette Stingray!) . I recon with a bit of work on brackets a pipes you could bolt a hydraulic PAS onto a series for around £200 using new parts. I know people cut chassis an fit all sorts of steering boxes, but I don't think its necessary, when you can bolt on a hydraulic ram. This type of steering was std on US cars good for 150 mph so I'm sure its OK for my 65mph.
https://www.powersteeringkit.com/
I'm happy with my LWB steering as it is, but if I get too weak to enjoy it I would go hydraulic using an actuator.

Its not a speed as to how fast, its for me a slow speed, the slower, the harder it is to steer now,
also you have to look at what you can and can't do MOT wise, you can't just be bolting things onto a chassis, it won't pass inspection

Absolutely agree. The hydraulic systems maintain a mechanical link so they assist rather then take over. It means that a failure of the hydraulic returns the system to "normal" steering. The geometry really matters, I'm sure its possible to get it wrong and if I did this I would be looking to copy the Heystee geometry as a start point then conduct tests. My personal preference is to avoid any modification to the chassis, bolt on OK but welding is hard to verify without some decent NDT and that's tricky in some of the locations. I'm also a big advocate of doing some basic calculations to check everything is safe. My personal worry is more around poor quality aftermarket parts, its hard to be sure what the material is and I have experienced some very poor threads.. Your "health warning" is well made, I'm a C.Eng and so I would check everything and feel bound to do it right, others reading my post could cut corners.

Is there a big power drain with a conversion similar to what Citizen Kane did or the one being offered here? Is the factory fitted Series alternator sufficient or would an uprated one - say to 45amp - be better?

I don't think so, but the ACR alterntors of all sizes are very marginal once you have halogens and a few other extraz such as heated screen. I run a A127 alternator, these are 75Amp and bolt straight on, same price as an ACR.

Difficult to say for sure, I run a 75 amp alternator and apart from 10 amps of heater blowers and 5 amps of heated seats my demand is the same as a standard S3. I was curious as in theory the steering can consume a significant amount of power, cant remember the figures but I think its around 30 or 40 amp. In reality I think its only ever sucking up small amounts of power for a very short amount of time, never seen it register on the voltmeter so the alternator can cope easily. I would say if your current alternator can cope with your average demand it should shrug off the power steering demand.

rob1miles said:

Absolutely agree. The hydraulic systems maintain a mechanical link so they assist rather then take over. It means that a failure of the hydraulic returns the system to "normal" steering.

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Doesn't the electrical assist work in the exact same way? As in a mechanical link is maintained but fitted with an electrical motor to assist?

Yes it does, it provides assistance torque to the steering column. My point was not to differentiate the hydraulic from the electric but to point out that a key part of any PAS conversion is that the mechanical steering remains in place as a fall back.

Thanks for the replies. The system that Citizen Kane has installed is very neat, I like it a lot and great engineering skills. The kit offered by the Land Rover dealer mentioned above (for £3.5K!) is similarly smart.
I'm not an engineer - but for a layman without intimate knowledge of the electronic version, it seems more logical for the 'assistance' to be as close to the driving wheels as possible, as with a ram system. Since the electronic version is the other side of the steering box, what impact will it have on the steering components over the long term? If used whilst the vehicle is in motion then perhaps not much, but if abused whilst the vehicle is stationary might be another matter. I suspect this discussion was done to death earlier in the thread, apologies.
My other worry would be faults and failures. If you pay someone that much money to install the kit, if/when a component fails, how easy is it to replace etc. It is also more difficult to un-install than a hydraulic ram system. You've also added new holes to your bulkhead. Then there is the issue of certification and insurance. Perhaps I'm 'seeing' too many issues but that's what immediately springs to mind. (I'm happy to have any misconceptions challenged).

Neither the ram system or the EPAS system are perfect, they are both a compromise. With both systems the force needed to move the steering wheels stays exactly the same. As you point out the EPAS is the wrong side of the steering box but it can only provide about an additional 25Nm of torque, I suspect a suitable strong individual can provide over 100 Nm of torque into the steering wheel. If your are a serial stationary steering wheel twiddler then this may not be the system for you. The EPAS will always fail safe, it has layers of protection built in and while they have been known to fail the mean time between failures when put into the context of Land Rover reliability is exceptional. Mines an early generation of EPAS, the more modern ones are very much smaller and easier to accommodate and I suspect even more reliable.

Don't know much about the Heystee hydraulic system and their potential failure modes but you would hope it would fail safe but these units are from a bygone era, I think this one was initially designed for the Santana and I guess it uses a spool valve so it could fail and restrict the movement of the ram and hence the steering. The steering is now linked to the spool valve rather than directly to the swivel so that probably introduces some disconnect into the system and of course you are trying to steer a link with three flexible pivots which cant be ideal. The ram can produce 15KN of force so if you keep the steering demand on when its on the swivel stop that's like having a 1.5T press pushing sideways on your dumb iron and swivel stop and steering arms.

When it comes to originality and holes in the bulkhead I'm not worried, my Land Rover is a daily user, its not an investment purchase and while all the metal in my bulkhead can trace its heritage back to the dawn of time itself most of it has been added in the past decade and I suspect that's true of nearly all Series Land Rover that have or are being used, if you have a Series Land Rover that's original you probably have a museum to keep it in.

I was a little surprised to see the price of both the EPAS linked to and the ram system, both are more than I would ever be willing to pay.

John S said:

Ahem! Why'd do you have a Series landy? Cos it's a basic utility vehicle; with no power steering. It does have the ability to fit power steering as an optional extra but that's long gone . There's plenty threads on Corsa electric power steering it not without complications. I'd rather stick with the original speculation. It's what sets it apart!

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well said,and once the swivels are overhauled ,like i did ,they much better to drive !!

I think its great that you are happy driving a standard Series Land Rover but we aren't all "off the peg" people, some of us like to personalise.

I think it is horse for courses. I'm in my comfort zone with hydraulics, I trained on that and still feel at home with fluid controls, I'm less comfortable with electronic controls so I lean towards oily solutions. I also found that the braking effort was more of a problem for me than the steering effort so I put a lot of work into getting the brakes to work better (with due thanks to CK who provided a life saver..). I do think that the brakes and steering together are quite an effort and reducing the force on one frees up more for the other. I did find that once I got the brakes sorted I had to remind myself that it was still a Series and not to enter roundabouts at a "modern car" speed after giving myself a fright. The without an anti-roll bar a Series can bite back. I don't pan to fit an anti-roll bar as I want the axle articulation, but I fear it would become an issue if both brakes and steering were up to modern standards..