OK, 40 views and no comments, Ill go first.

I designed (LOL!) A tubing bender that uses a truck power steering box as the power source.

The die mounts to the output shaft of the box, a crank goes on the input shaft, the rest has to be fabricated.

It works, but I haven't tried it, someone else did.

I can get a PS box from the junk yard for 40$ and they are very powerful and durable.

Crappy sketch to come later.

So the power steering box is the hydraulic pump, and the steering ram is the hydraulic cylinder? Nice. What are you using as a control valve?

My buddy & I have been toying with making front end loaders to fit our zero-turn mowers. He's got a 60" Snapper-Pro and I've got a 72" Exmark. Both giant pigs/tanks. Been toying with using p/s pumps off geo trackers (cheeeeap) as the power source, belt-driven off deck PTO.

No, even simpler!

Die mounts to output shaft of BOX.

Remove pitman arm, install die.

Crappy sketch,

Genius!

Right?

The dude that tried it after I posted it on another offroad site said it would bend as fast as he could crank the handle. A part that he fabricated broke under the pressure and he decided to go with the standard Jd version. But it worked up to that point. I still haven't gotten to the point of trying it myself.

I would think you'd need a box from a semi. Something heavy duty.

Could be, has to be tested.

What made me think of it was seeing the old hossfeld bender that a fab guy I worked for had. He powered the ram with an old chevy PS pump. It worked great for the past 20 yrs before I even met him.

One day I was thinking of the pump and said to myself, why not just use the box too.

I thought of when I had an old bronco with 35s and no matter how deep/stuck you got the those tires, the steering box could still move the tires back and forth and it never broke the box.

They use a recirculating ball screw to drive a worm and wheel type gear setup. Efficient and powerful.

Im talking race car tubing bender, not crazy big tubing. Like 1-3/4, 2.00 tops.

Found another sketch that I forgot I did. I do a lot of sketching! Way too many ideas!

That first one was done about 8 yrs ago, this one is newer, but harder to understand.

I imagine the power steering has built-in pressure relief, too. AKA: when you crank the wheel all the way and hear the pump wane a little bit, and that fluid pressure gets dumped somewhere (reservoir).

So you just crank the crank and she goes, eh? nice.

To cut down on the "fabricated" parts list, you can make the "pressure shoe" and the little clamp die with mild steel, too. No need to mill the right radius -- just find something steel with the right hole diameter. I used these 1/4" thk square "washers" that had a 1.25" hole ID. A few Zzt-zzzzt's of the MIG later, and its done.

My bender has the HF air/hyd cylinder and its SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW. Only good thing is you can lock it in the "on" position and walk-away, and also you can kinda' get a little more accuracy/repeat-ability with the slow bend rate. For $200 ($100 for bracket and cylinder, each), its a great simple add-on to the JD2. I've still only bent two 20' sticks of 1.25" tubing on my bender. I need to get back on the buggy stuff!

"So you just crank the crank and she goes, eh? nice."

That's the idea.

Any updates?

Unfortunately no, but hopefully soon.

I did stop by the local yard not too long ago and was about to go out and find a nice clean one, but the yard was a totally under water and I wasn't in the mood for playing in the mud.

Try a power steering box and pump off a school bus, check with your local dump that scraps buses you can probably get one super cheap. 20x stronger than a pickup truck (guessing)