Poor Man's Power Steering

how's it going illuminators today we're going to be installing a Poor Man's power steering kit on a Craftsman riding lawnmower so with that being said let's get right into it [Applause] all right so today in the shop I have a Craftsman YT 4000 riding lawnmower here that I ended up purchasing late last year however just recently as the weather has transitioned to spring we've pulled this out of storage we've fully serviced this riding lawnmower and we're just going over some easy modifications to help increase the price that I can sell this for one of those repairs was replacing the factory wheel bushings with a set of roller bearings which will significantly increase how smooth this thing rolls you can literally push this riding lawnmower forward with one finger when the transmission is in bypass mode commonly referred to as Freewheel mode this thing now rolls super smooth and I already have a video on how to swap your wheel bushings to bearings if you want to watch that you can click the link in the top right of your screen I'll also link it in the description Down Below in today's video though we're not going to be focusing on the wheel we are going to be focusing on the spindle as you heard me say we are going to be installing a Poor Man's power steering kit and I've already installed it on on the other side so what is it and why would you want to install it well I'll bring you down to the spindle and we'll have a closer look so the majority of these residential riding lawn mowers are pretty much all built the same you're going to have a solid axle that goes across the front of the machine and it pivots directly in the middle off of the end of that axle you are going to have your wheel spindle that goes down and it connects the wheel to the spindle itself via the axle basically it's just a bent piece of metal and then down here we have a tie rod that goes to a little bracket with another tie rod there that goes back to the steering bracket at the center of the machine that hooks back to your steering column now this machine is a little bit different normally you have this piece here connected directly to the outer spindle on the wheel on this one it has this little bracket in the center that also pivots so you get a little bit of extra turning radius but as I mentioned in today's video I'm going to be installing the Poor Man's power steering and what that is is essentially a flat thrust needle bearing sandwiched in between two other washers and it is installed on the underside of the spindle to increase how easy it is to steer your machine basically the idea behind this poor man's power steering kit is the entire weight of the front end is on those two spindles and they only have just a flat washer installed in between the spindle and the upper axle so you get a lot of wear that happens on that washer there by installing this what is sometimes referred to as a top trunnion bearing it will allow the spindle to turn easier inside of that axle so I'll bring you over to the workbench and I'll show you what kit I bought and then we can go ahead and get started on this install you are going to need a Poor Man's power steering kit where can you get them well you can go on Amazon and purchase the Dig steering bearing kit I've put two up on the screen there they go for about twenty dollars U.S per kit and you're going to notice there's two different kits listed one has black rubber dust caps while the other one has yellow rubber dust caps and that's really good because you can purchase either kit depending on if you have a Craftsman or a Husqvarna or if you had a John Deere for example you could use the yellow dust caps to keep that factory appearance and you can also get this through John Deere themselves I was looking on John Deere parts website for an la130 model riding lawnmower and sure enough in the parts diagram it showed this thrust needle bearing kit with these washers again you're going to see them installed on the bottom end of the spindle and links for that kit will be in the description down below as well as pinned in the top comment and before we get into today's repair I'll just briefly walk you through exactly what you're going to need or what you might need to do this repair it's very simple you could do it with basic hand tools if you want you're going to need some type of standard flat head screwdriver I would recommend a set of channel locks as well as a small Hammer you're going to need a half inch opened end wrench with a 9 16 socket on a ratchet or an impact I would also recommend something to pry off the dust cap whether that's going to be a screwdriver or my little modified paint can opener here I do have a video on how to remove pesky dust caps you guys can click in the top right of your screen to watch that using this tool if you'd like but apart from that you're also going to need a little bit of Grease today I'll be using some marine grade grease and I would recommend a heat gun or some type of oxyacetylene propane torch because we're going to be using a little bit of heat to rein install the old dust caps if you don't want to install these nice and malleable new ones or if you wanted to use those ones on your wheels then you're going to have to reuse the top dust caps on the spindle tops additionally a magnetic Parts tray is always going to come in handy and lastly because we are going to have to lift the front end of the machine up to drop the spindle out of that axle there you are going to need some type of Jack I am positioning it to the center deck hanger there slightly off to the left side so that once we start pumping up that jack it will slightly raise the left side here more than the right next because of the position of the hood to the top of the spindle there I will be removing the hood it's very easy on this particular machine all I have to do is disconnect the headlight plug there and then at a 45 degree angle lift straight up and this Hood will come right off so with the hood now off we have tons of room to work here and before we lift the front of this machine clean up we are going to have to do a couple things we're going to pop the dust cap off as well as the e-clip and washer and disconnect just this tie rod end from the spindle itself you won't have to disconnect anything else and if your machine has the spindle directly connected to this tie rod a lot of times you probably won't even have to disconnect the tie rod so you may not need the 9 16 socket or the half inch wrench now on top of that there is going to be a nut as well as a lock washer you can pull that out and simply put that off to the side next up I'm going to be removing the dust cap with my little modified paint can opener here if you find that they're really hardened you may have to use the heat gun to warm them up a bit now this is where things may get pretty messy because if you do regular maintenance on your machine and grease your spindles via this zerk grease fitting there this whole spindle shaft should be filled with grease so we're going to just wipe the top of this down you might want to use a little bit of brake cleaner as well but then we can use our standard screwdriver here and pry off this e-clip pry it out just like that next up there is going to be a washer here you can remove that this washer is a little bit wider and that is what your dust cap locks onto so you are going to have to reuse that and then we can start to slowly jack up the riding lawnmower here and you guys are going to notice that the spindle is coming right out of that axle keep going until we can pull it right out all right so we now have our wheel and our spindle assembly disconnected from the center axle here and once again because I did the wheel bearing upgrade this thing spins super easy now so that's something that I would highly recommend which is again why I recommend that deed kit because it pretty much gives you everything you need to do the Poor Man's power steering kit as well as your wheel bearing upgrade now at this point you might think washer needle bearing washer slap that onto the spindle reinstall the spindle onto the axle you're pretty much good to go right well a lot of these mowers are going to be built slightly different than some of the other ones I have done a kit like this on a John Deere and I was able to use the needle bearing and the washer over the factory washer that is usually installed on these machines and there is one right there we're going to be talking about that in a minute I was able to reinstall this kit all together reinstall that wide washer on top and install my e-clip without issue and there was no binding so the washer at the top still had a little bit of play I'm going to be discussing that in a moment however on this particular Rider as it is different from other craftsmans that I've worked on I was not able to use both of the washers and the needle bearing on the other side because like I said I've already done that side and that is simply due to the length of the top spindle shaft as well as the length of the axle upright right there now I've already taken some measurements and the factory washer that they install on the bottom side of this spindle is identical to the washer that is included in this kit so you can either leave the factory washer on the bottom of the spindle there and then install the roller bearing and then install your washer on top of that and then reinstall the whole assembly or you could remove that washer and just install a new one in its place but what I am going to take you through is the step that I had to go through on this side to figure out how much play you still have in your shaft because there might be a little bit of shimming you're going to have to do with some extra washers or in the case of this particular riding lawnmower you may not have enough room to run those washers so you may have to in fact remove them and that is what I had to do on this particular riding mower so I'll just briefly walk you through exactly what I had to do on this particular machine keep in mind that yours might be a little different so at first I installed the kit as intended washer bearing washer on the bottom of the spindle what I noticed is when I put everything back together and I'm going to put a photo up on screen when I put the large washer that the dust cap seats onto onto the top of the axle there I did not see the groove for the e-clip which meant I was too thick on the bottom side which pulled the spindle shaft down through the axle so I removed one of the washers so now I was only running the bearing and the washer just like that I reassembled everything however when I put that back together even though I was able to see the groove for the e-clip what ended up happening was when I popped the e-clip back into the spindle shaft I tried to spin the wide washer that the dust cap seats onto and I wasn't able to physically move it that means that there was so much tension in between the spindle and the washer and that e-clip that it was basically binding up that washer and that's not good guys you do not not want to run into a situation where that e-clip is binding and is grinding up against that washer because as you're driving your machine around that e-clip it could become damaged or broken at which point you go over a bump the entire spindle could come out of the axle and that's incredibly dangerous so you guys are going to want to keep that in mind once we reassemble everything you're going to grab that top washer and just move it ever so slightly to make sure that you have enough play to allow that washer to spin remember a little bit of play is never a bad thing however excessive play is because it can lead to wear so with the factory washer removed I am wiping this down as best I can to remove all of the gunk from all of the debris and grass sticking to the grease and then I am going to apply some of that marine grade grease to the bearing here so I've greased up the roller bearing using some of this Moto Master marine grade grease you can use pretty much anything you want you even a red and tacky or a white lithium I'm sure would be just fine but once you get that greased up slide that all the way down to the bottom of the spindle shaft next up Grease the shaft of the spindle itself I know that we do have a zerk fitting right there that we can grease that later but it's always good to apply a little bit of Grease just to make it easier to go into the upper axle and at this point I would also recommend that if you have a zerk fitting on the wheel itself go ahead and put some grease into that so that you get your axle lubed up depending on if you have the bushings they do have these little cutouts at the top and when you're installing them you want to put that little Groove to the grease fitting side or the zerk fitting side that way it allows grease to go in to the center axle on this particular machine though like I said I have the bearings installed however some bearings do not have a 2rs or a dual Rubber seal some only have the Rubber seal on the outside so if you have a bearing like this that's Exposed on the inside either you're going to have to pump the entire center of the wheel filled with grease and that will keep water out of your bearings or on this particular riding lawnmower I do have two RS bearings installed so they have a Rubber seal on both sides of the bearing then line up the spindle with your axle and we can start to lower that down make sure you lower your jack all the way or enough to the point where you see clearance in between that Center deck support and the Jack itself and essentially what we're doing is just making contact in between the bottom of the axle the roller bearing and the spindle there at this point we can install the flat washer on top then grab your e-clip and line that up once again you guys are going to see here that I have plenty of space in between the top washer and the e-clip and I'm going to show you guys once I get this thing installed called that there is no binding and I am using my channel lock pliers here to seat the e-clip into position and another trick I like to do is just take my slotted screwdriver and just move that around a bit to ensure that the e-clip is in fact locked into the groove on that spindle shaft so now we'll discuss that ability to move that top flat washer that the dust cap locks onto again you want to have that moving because you don't want to have too much tension on your e-clip so this means that everything's free nothing is binding so that's why on this particular unit I'm just running the needle bearing alone on the bottom side and I have just enough room to move that washer at this point you can reinstall your dust cap now these aren't completely hardened yet they are still a little bit malleable however you may find it difficult to reinstall them so that's where the heat gun comes in handy I know that I do have two brand new caps that were included in the Dig kit however I want to use those for my wheel caps because when I did the bearings for the wheels here I had to remove the old caps and they were super hard they ended up cracking and falling apart so I'm going to use those for the wheels and I'll reuse these ones because they're still in pretty good condition you don't have to heat these things up too much it just takes a little bit of heat to make them a little bit more malleable let's try that oh yeah this thing's super easy to go on now I bet check this out just like that guys so now we can hook up our tie rod line up the threads for the tie rod and we can install the lock washer and get that nut tightened up I can now install my new dust cap here onto the wheel and you guys probably saw I have a whole bunch of washers installed in there that is to take up the play on the wheel you don't want these things rattling around same thing with your spindle you don't want excessive play it's always nice to have a drawer of thrust washers in either half inch or three quarter inch ID on hand just to shim up anything that has excessive play even new ones are tricky to get on but good you want to make sure you have those dust caps on especially if you're running bushings and not bearings because any dirt and debris that gets in between the bushing and the axle is going to significantly decrease not only the life of the bushing but can also wear down the axle shaft itself but before we wrap up this repair now that the spindle and everything is reassembled you are going to have to pump the spindle full of grease through the grease fitting there with a grease gun man do these things make a mess sometimes and I know refilling them can definitely be time consuming and a messy job I wish there was a better way well there just might be I want to give a huge shout out to lube shuttle for sending me this grease gun this is made in Germany and this grease gun is a little bit different than the rest they make some pretty crazy claims here says no plunger to pull back no air gaps no leaking grease no wasted grease no wasted time and the best part of all no mess it features a 3 red in tube so you just pop the cap off of the top of this I believe you have to press slightly on the bottom of that just to get the grease started up to the threads and then you simply thread this right into the grease gun and that's it guys the only drawback I see from this is that you have to buy their grease however they do sell empty tubes and you can fill those tubes with pretty much any grease you want I am going to be doing an unboxing and I'll also be using this grease gun in an upcoming Standalone video so you guys are going to want to stay tuned for that but regardless of what grease gun you're using you want to be pumping grease into the spindle until you see fresh grease coming out of the bottom now I did claim you guys would be able to push this with one finger so let's see sure enough easy as that now you guys probably won't notice a big difference when the riding lawnmower is in a stationary position however once you start moving this thing you're going to notice how much easier it is to steer left and right and when combined with the wheel bearing upgrade this thing now rolls and steers super smooth well that's going to wrap up today's video a quick and easy install and a very inexpensive modification that pretty much anyone can do on their own riding lawnmower at home without any expensive tools you can do this for twenty dollars in less than 20 minutes and it will significantly decrease the amount of force you'll have to put on the steering wheel when driving your riding lawn mower but with that being said if you guys enjoyed the video think about leaving me a thumbs up you know it really helps me out you can click here to subscribe and click over here to watch one of my previous videos I upload every single week so be sure to stop on by next week check channel for new content and as always guys thanks for watching [Music] thank you

Channel: Eliminator Performance

Views: 48,615

Keywords: Craftsman, YT3000, YT3500, YT4000, YT4500, GT2000, GT2500, GT3000, GT4000, GT5000, GT6000, Husqvarna, 532009040, M123811, 9040h, John Deere, LA130, Riding lawn mower, Riding mower, steering, bearing, bearings, poor man's power steering, thrust needle roller bearing, top trunnion bearing, trunnion bearing, 9040H, 2RS, bushing, bushing replacement, bearing upgrade, hard to steer, wheels, tire, wobble, power steering, easy steer, Turn Tight, Jake Stefinashen, Jacob Stefinashen, EP, Eliminator Performance

Id: Yk4K6slh5oo

Length: 19min 18sec (1158 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 23 2023