Originally Posted By: Amirkhat
Thanks, I am going to pick up the coolant additive from ford that prevents the cavitation of the block. Unfortunately, the power steering pump is a little delicate on these vehicles because just about the entire back end reservoir is plastic so I'll have to be especially careful with the one. I recently discovered that, due to the nature of Diesel engines, they don't produce any vacuum for the breaks, therefore there's a mechanical pump that supplements this. This system is a little more complicated and therefore it's assumed to be slightly more prone to failure, I wonder if this circulates break fluid for lubrication? I pray that hing never fails, I'm not sure how fast the e-brake will stop the truck!!
Amir
There are two ways that the OEMs have handled brake boost on diesel trucks. One was a mechanical vacuum pump so that the same booster as used on a gas engine would work (and had the side benefit of providing vacuum for all the HVAC blend doors in the days when those were all vacuum-driven as well). The method that's more common now is is "hydroboost," (google it) which uses the power steering pump to provide hydraulic pressure for a hydraulic power booster. These are rather popular in the muscle car world because 1) they work with big honkin' camshafts that don't generate any vacuum at idle, and 2) they're much ore compact than vacuum boosters so they don't get in the way of headers and/or bigger engine transplants in small cars.
Oh and as for the vague steering: Welcome to the world of older full-size Ford trucks. Whether its a Twin-I-Beam IFS, or a solid axle 4x4, or the later hybrid Twin-I 4x4 IFS where the diff swings up and down with one wheel and there's a U-joint in the middle (Twin Traction Beam), they all just kinda wander. Camber changes with suspension jounce and loading, which is one thing that makes it "feel funny." Ford Twin-I was tougher than just about any other 2-wheel-drive independent front suspension in pickups, but not exactly a precision instrument- it really is a case of trading off precision for ruggedness. The 2-wheel-drive Dodge and Chevy trucks of the the 70s-90s handled and held the road a whole lot better than yours, but they'd go two sets of front balljoints before your truck would need any real front suspension work. The pre-94 Dodges were the weakest of the 3, Chevy in the middle.