For a pump to become a motor you can make what was the output when it was a pump the input to make a motor so the high pressure side is the same, only mods to make it a motor that I can think of is to block off the pressure relief valve & fit some springs behind the vanes to hold then out against the wall (if they don't have any fitted allready)Shadow wrote:interesting idea with the power steer pumnp. Only problem i can see is that the low pressure side of the pump may not be able to handle the full pressure as in the high pressure side? i guess experimentation is in order >_<
If you got 4 4wd pumps for the wheels, and a big ass truck power steer pump attached to the motor, you could then also run all your steering etc from hydro aswell.
I wonder how much torque a power steer pump would have before you blow seals in the pump.
As for seals blowing! the pumps have pressure relief valves fitted standard so no probs there, the idea to have one pump to one motor is two fold in that if they are they are both the same size then what ever rpm the pump is doing the motor will be doing approx the same, thus the reduction can be done at the wheel keeping any stall type loads away from the hydraulic system the other advantage is it works like you have diff locks because each wheel is being driven seperatly and as long as the gearing is right the wheels with traction would still spin without stalling.
Steering could be enhanced by speeding up the pumps on one side (by using variable pullies) during the turn whilst still giving true 4 wheel drive some thing that diff locks can't do.
the drivetrain possabilites are endless with small scale buggies, easy to borrow bits & pieces from other common machinery & make it work.