HYDRAULIC SYSTEM

I used to design hydraulic pumps for Eaton Hydraulics, so I realize that the hydraulic system I built is way overkill. But I had fun doing it. In order to run the cylinders on the plow and the hydraulic motor on the broom I had to have a pump, a valve, and a reservoir - and hoses to interconnect all three. Here is a shot of the system complete. It shows the pump mounted and all the hydraulic lines running from the valve in the cab to the front. The heater core and plumbing was removed to provide room for the hydraulics.

From the picture above you can see my Eaton / Vickers vane pump. I mounted the pump in the same location where an AC pump would mount. But, since the pump was so big I had to make my own mount. To the right is a shot of the hydraulic reservoir and filter. I made the reservoir from scratch from 14 gauge A36.

Here is a little better shot of the reservoir. You can see that I mounted it to the firewall with unistrut and key shaped mounts welded to the tank. In order to fit the tank I had to remove the glove box and all of the heating parts of the jeep. It was not a big deal because they were in bad shape anyway.

I mounted the dual lever Eaton valve between the two front seats. One section controls the up and down of the plow and the other section controls the broom motor or the tilt of the plow - depending on the which is installed.

Here I am testing the system before the tank is installed behind the dash. It took some shimming and adjusting of the pump mount to get the belt properly aligned. Here you can see my sight gauge of the tank - simple but effective. Also notice the stainless jeep

The final product. The broom turns and lifts. The plow tilts. I was able to plow all winter of 2010 with only some minor tweaking to the system. I had to swap out the rotating group of the vane pump for less GPM because I was getting a terrible cavitation noise at high RPM. Not sure why because the inlet condition is not that bad. The lower GPM is fine for the plow by turns the broom too slow.