Electric Power Steering

[mgb260]

Mike, Cool!  Keep us posted.

[Capt'n Moorgone]

A couple pics.

[BlownMGB-V8]

So Mike, which pieces are what? MG parts, other parts,

Jim

[Capt'n Moorgone]

Jim,  The ends are both MG. The shafts were cut and spliced with some of the Equinox shaft pieces spliced in. The lower outer tube is made of exhaust adaptors and pipe. Took a drive today!!  This thing makes it a blast to drive! I need to dial in a little more castor to get the wheel to self center faster. With Ted's front end ,I'm running about 2 degrees now. It is just so smooth to drive!    Mike

[mgb260]

Mike, 5-6 castor is good for self centering. Probably shim between frame and back crossmember bolts.

[Charles]

Mike, I noticed you wrote,   " I did take the control box off the motor and hid it under the dash."    I do hope you made a HEAT SINK for the high power components in side the controller, the use of the 80 amp fuse is a clue. That white stuff you wiped off was heat sink compound. They were using the body of the steering unit as a heat sink, hence the white heat sink compound. If you did not, you need to install a fairly large heat sink to the controller. I would use a piece of alum. 1/4 - 3/8 thick X 3"x5" cut to fit the screw holes, then apply some heat sink compound.
Mike, I would limit the use until the heat sink is installed as those high power devices will self destruct.
charles

[Capt'n Moorgone]

Charles ,
You are right about the heat sink. I did screw a large piece of aluminum back on the motor. I even had some old heat conductive compound in stock to make the connection. I don't think our #2500 cars will ever get the motor hot. I read the high amp fuse was for when someone holds full lock on the steering wheel. I have a 30 amp fuse in-line with #6 power cable going to the battery. Fuse holder is rated for more if needed. I won't be able to any more testing until the snow melts.
Mike

[Charles]

Mike, I am proud for you. You do good, very good work. I did not think you would let something slip by.
Did you remove the shafts before welding? The bad thing is all of your handy work is hidden from view.
charles

[Capt'n Moorgone]

Thanks Charles,
The best thing to do is take the column out, and take an overall shaft measurement without u-joint. Then you have to work down the column starting at the steering wheel placement. I used the two mounting bolts as a benchmark. The late column has three mount bolts. You end up eliminating the odd one. I used a pipe cutter to cut the upper tube off the EPS. The shaft cuts were done with hack saw.I used the splined slip joint from the EPS unit as a coupling. Welded a piece of the inside splined tube to the MG shaft down past the steering lock sleeve. I used a 3/4" wooden dowel to mock up the length. I'll try to post some pics of the inner shafts this weekend.  Mike

[74ls1tr6]

Hi Mike,

Anymore photos? I just went to the recycle yards and picked up two Saturn Vue electric steering setups. I should have took the steering columns with me hmmm. The steering was $41 a piece. Cheap way for power steering!! One was out of an 03 and one out of an 07

[Charles]

Mike, when you relocated the controller. Did you uplug either end or did you cut and splice the white and blue wires? I am doing my car now, with your OK I will post some pictures and HIDIDIT.
charles

[Capt'n Moorgone]

Calvin,
These EPS units are so perfect for our cars. The price and availability make them very attractive. It is going to be helpful to have the whole column for tubes and shaft parts. I took mine back out of the my car to make some final measurements in case I need to build a couple more units. Not sure what kind of picture you want, but I can surely make it happen. Let me know.

Charles,
I didn't want disturb the factory connections on the boards, so I cut and spliced the white and blue wires using small speaker wire. Be careful of matching them back up. They are position sensors. One pair is for the right turn and one pair is for left turn. Mixing them up is not good! I soldered and heat shrunk the joints for security. I made them quite long and tie wrapped them close to the ends as to keep them from pulling on the factory connections.

I have a column out of a GT in stock that I'm going to convert. I have found the over all length is different on the earlier columns compared to the later rubber bumper columns. Keep me posted on your progress. I'll help any way I can.
                                                                                    Capt'n

[Charles]

Mike, thanks. I am using the slip joint top and bottom, that way measurements do not need to be precise. That does add the extra ujoint that has to be handled
I found out the hard way, those little white and blue wires do not unplug, they are soldered at both ends. I made a quick trip to Pull-A-Part this past Sat. at 23F for replacement. Did you know those places are not heated?
See you in Indy.
charles

[74ls1tr6]

Mike,
This steering setup calls for a write up on this site. It would be awesome for all who want this type of steering. I may do the write up for the TR6 side. It would be good with lots of photo's and how it was done. I'm sure a lot would step on over to side of power steering the electric way.

I need to go back and pick up the top side of the steering wheel assembly, witch are probably still there at the recycle yard in the car, if not there is two more cars at close by yards.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Yes, a comprehensive writeup would be excellent, I'm sure this will become a hit. But just the info you guys have posted already is great.

Jim

[Dan B]

The car that really needs this is a TR7.   Small steering wheel and a little hard to steer.  TR8s came with factory power steering, but those racks are as rare as hen's teeth.

[MGBV8]

Jim, I believe Dan is trying to tell you something.  

[BlownMGB-V8]

Yeah we've talked about this. But first things first, Edith is threatening to jack the rent up on him.

Jim

[Capt'n Moorgone]

Charles,  
  When you get ready to wire the unit up, the control box needs to be grounded . I just ran a small wire to the cover screw. Under the cover you can see the board has a ground on that screw.
                                 Mike

[Charles]

Mike,  thanks, I kinda thought that.  Had some challenges getting my contoller. Almost gave up and made my own vss controller till I discovered its CAN data.
 Are you going to do a write-up? I have taken lots of pictures and taken measurement so If you do not want to I may.
charles

[Capt'n Moorgone]

Knock your self out! I'm more of a talker, than a writer.
I haven't checked on the progress of the guy building the VSS controller lately. He was trying to get it to market soon.
   Mike

[Charles]

Are you not using the controller ordered from the internet? There is another one? I found out that I have a nephew that is now working for a firm in Germany that is making EPS units. He lives on MI and now in France working on an issue. When he returns I will quiz him.
I have read some on the two purple wires goin to the controller, appears they may be CAN data. i think the sensors that are monitored by the car ECM are speed, brakes, turning or not, stability control, and maybe a couple others. Straight-up learning again. Adaptive EPS responce for our cars may be a bit much.
I will start a write-up soon with pictures and measurements.
charles

[BlownMGB-V8]

Charles, if it's tied into the CAN bus that probably means it takes commands to modify steering boost based on vehicle speed. Not a bad feature when you think about what you need for parking and for cruising. This could probably be made to work out well with the MegaSquirt controller that a number of us use without too much difficulty since it is already set up for CAN bus communication.

Jim

[Charles]

Jim B, I now find another write-up saying serial data from the ECM to determine speed. Some guy on another site is working on a Yaris unit that uses VSS. Someone else is working on a different controller but facing legal stuff. Who knows? I want my set-up working then re-engineer.

Mike M, I did recieve my Bruno controller and have started connecting it, did not work at first. I found that second shift had left a cold solder joint, good help getting hard to find. Fixed that, now working. I have almost completed the set-up then I will start a write-up.

charles

[74ls1tr6]

That's great Charles.

 I'm working on the TR6 steering column. The difference is the TR6 column is aluminum. So I'm waiting for different size's of aluminum so I  can weld the steering wheel side of the column together, and the bottom side of the column.

It will be great to see your write up!