Posted by Clint Dixon [172.68.58.86] on Saturday, April 28, 2018 at 20:40:25 :
In Reply to: Re: more power stgeering questions posted by Clint Dixon [172.68.58.86] on Thursday, April 26, 2018 at 20:12:41 :
Further research reveals more. In my first post above I stated what I found as far as information on the pump pulley in the 1957 parts list: "The driven pulley mounted on the pump is under code 19-54-86 as: PULLEY, Pump, part number 1667 514. This number is new and is unique to the W-300." What totally I missed during my research for my first two posts is that there is more information in the 1958 parts list about this pump pulley. It shows that the 1667 514 pulley was only used up to serial number 83956834. At this serial number, the 1667 515 pulley was replaced with a pulley with a new part number: 1797 331. Going by the serial number, this change took place at about 4,000 trucks into the KW300 model year.
I feel this little notation that I almost missed is definitive proof that belt driven power steering pumps were mounted on the front passenger corner of the cylinder head for at least the 1957 model year and probably most if not all of the LW300M models during the 1958 model year. And, generator pumps did not come about until later on, at the earliest on the 1959 M6-W300M or possibly even as late as the 1960 P6-W300M.
The reason why I place so much faith in that one notation is because of what I find in all of the parts lists prior to these as well as those that followed. Dodge followed an established pattern. When a major change in parts took place in the middle of a model run, they took great care to note the truck serial numbers of when the changes took place. This made it much easier for the parts department to be sure the correct part was sourced when a replacement was needed during service or rebuild.
If the belt driven cylinder head mounted power steering pump had never been used on the W300 and W300M Power Wagons, there would have been no truck serial number to note in the parts list in order to record when a part change had taken place.
I then moved onto my four latest parts lists: 1961, 1961-1962, 1963, and 1963-1968. These include the R6-W300M, S6-W300M, and S6-WM300 models. Nowhere in these parts lists is there any mention of W300M or WM300 trucks in the sections of the lists covering power steering. And only the manual steering box is listed for these models. The other Dodge model trucks reverted back to belt driven power steering pumps mounted to the engine. So far I have found no part numbers shared with those from 1957 and 1958. However, the models now available with power steering had increased substantially and researching all of the part numbers would take a month of Sundays.
This all raises the good question, "What about the SEG. Couldn't they have custom installed power steering on a WDX-WM300 Power Wagon per customer's request? The short answer would be yes. But, I would pity the owner of one of these trucks if something broke or wore out and they went to a dealership hoping to find replacement parts for that custom power steering setup. The parts man's parts lists would have been of no help.
Junior