tractor hydraulic fluid for steering fluid?

[RLDSL]

I have a pile of universal 10w20 universal tractor hydraulic /transmission fluid laying around and just happen to need to completely fill my new hydroboost installation . The ford type F fluid is 10wt transmission/hydraulic fluid. Any reason why this stuff shouldn't work?
Thanks--------Robert

 

[Dieselcrawler]

alot of off road guys run the amsoil UTF in their power steering, seems to work for them. lol

 

[RLDSL]

alot of off road guys run the amsoil UTF in their power steering, seems to work for them. lol

in amsoil the correct steering fluid would be teh supershift fluid, not the universal transmistion fluid. With the synthetic , it wouldn't hurt anything, but they'd have better results with the proper match.

I just found teh answer to my own question after some digging. Tractor hydraulic/transmission fluid has friction modifiers in it and type f doesnt so that would be a no . In a non synthetic fluid there just isn't the overkill in protection to compensate

 

[flareside_thun]

I was going to say no but you've got it covered. However, a ton of guys run it in their automatic trannies.

 

[rjglenn]

You can always use it for fuel, or give it to me and I'll use it for fuel...

 

[typ4]

My good friend and Fellow IDI owner,Dan, He has 4 of them, says it works great in the power steering and the zf5 and c6 .

 

[opusd2]

I'm guilty of having used HyTrans fluid that we run in our IH tractors in my power steering. In the past, anyway.

I've never noticed any poor results, or failed steering pumps, but I could have just been lucky since they were all pretty old units.

 

[opusd2]

Now I actually spring for the real stuff, and run synthetic in what I can.

 

[RLDSL]

There's a good chance I'd just throw it in there, but I just bought a new red head steering box to the tune of some serious $$$ and I don't want to void a warranty so unless they say otherwise, I'm going with the spec in my manual. I was just hoping it would match the spec, but it appears not to, although the reasoning for usage of type F is rather unclear as that would be the favourable fluid for the ford transmission, but I can't see it providing an advantage in a steering box, I would think a hydraulic fluid with friction modifiers would be benificial.

I will be changing it over to Amsoil after a while, but I got the hydroboost unit I just installed at a boneyard and want to run it a bit on some regular fluid and check for leaks, then flush it out and put in the good stuff

 

[RLDSL]

Update, I've had a few delays and had;t filled it yet so since monday has rolled around, I called and spoke to the owner of Redhead steering gears today and he's fine with the universal tractor hydraulic/transmission fluid
So in it goes

 

[82F100SWB]

In essence, the steering system is a hydraulic system, real hydraulic fluid should work quite well.
Personally I've used everything from 80W90 to J13 and pretty much everything in between in my idi, even chain oil... Between leaking steering boxes and blown lines It's probably had manual steering more than it's had power in the last 5 years...