Power Steering Pump w/ no fluid
 

So, out at lunch, I noticed my steering had gone all stiff. Figured I just needed more power steering fluid, but when I got back home, I saw a large puddle of (what I hope was) power steering fluid, which means it ALL leaked out.

So, will I be doing any damage by driving the car to the gas station for more PS fluid, or should i wait for another vehicle to become available? I'm concerned about smoking the PS pump or something...

I dont know if youll damage the pump, but the rack will be fine. Id just take the belt off the pump.

Well, I put more PS fluid in there, steered the wheel from end to end a few times, and it puked the fluid out the top of the fill hole, all while making the familiar groaning noise.

I took the belt off since then.

Any ideas? Sound like a smoked pump, or what?

Just take the pump off,you don't need it is less weight or just take the belt as drox said.

MAX

So it's ok to run the steering rack without a PS pump on it? I was thinking of ditching mine too, but did not want to have to replace the steering rack with a manual one.

lots of people ditch the pump. Steering at low speeds will be stiffer, but that is the only known side effect.

im running no pump right now just yank it off save some $$ and weight and a little power by ripping it off yull love it it just takes a day or to before you dont ever realize you took it off

Aside from manual steering, as long as there's no other mechanical drawbacks to it I suppose I'll just "forget" to put the PS pump and hoses back on when I drop in the T2 engine next week, lol

thx for the info guys

yea definantly man dont put that back on ps is not ment for a sports car at all in my opinion its to easy to lose control with power stearing and you cant flow trough turns like you can without power stearing. but if you have the engine out why dont you just replace the ps. rack with a manual stearing rack? havent heard anything going wrong with a ps rack without the pump but id rather have a manual stearing rack on there if everything was out of the way cuz it was built to withstand more

You know, I'd really like to but can't dish out more $$$ than I have already. Between buying the rebuilt T2 engine and components to do my conversion from Kevin, plus the "other" stuff I am replacing (replacement hoses, silicone hoses, Corksport DP, Apexi intake, Fiberglass T2 hood, Eibach Anti-Swaybar kit, misc. bushings for suspension replacement, etc)...I am hitting the limits of cash I want to put out right now, lol. Not only that, I've got a GP Sports front end on "backorder" so I've got to have the cash for that when it's shipped. :(

If you just take the belt off steering will be hard. Not unbearable hard...But hard enough to make you not want to drive and turn at slow speeds ( like through a neighborhood ). The same thing happened to me and I just took the belt off at first. Then I noticed that at cruising speed ( where my PS would normally cut itself off anyways ) steering was still stiffer than it should be. This prompted me to totally remove my PS all together and it made a world of difference. Steering with just the belt gone, and steering with the whole PS gone is like night and day.

PS removal isnt too hard either.

So adam, you swapped out the ps rack and put in a manual rack?

can someone do a quick write up on how to take off and what to take off with the PS??? to make it manual steering (not swaping out the whole rack just taking out the PS) please i begg you i want to do it

Nope. I just pulled everything, drained out some fluid ( not all...You need some in the rack to keep it lubed or it can fail ) and then plugged up the holes left.

If I can ever find a good condition manual rack ( for cheap ) , and feel like Im up for all the work, I might swap it out. But as for now, I think its great. And like I said, just taking off the belt doesnt give you the slightest idea of how it feels to actually remove the pump and most of the fluid.

I did it the same way adamlewis did... I can steer with 1 hand at a stop.. Im not a real big guy either

Yeah. Same here.

I cant move it with one had while at a dead stop ( without the car moving ) but as soon as I roll forward a little bit, I can one hand it just fine.

Well alrighty then, that sounds easy enough. I've already got all the hoses and such off the car since the engine and all is out now. So is there an alternate bracket for having AC only, or do I have to keep that big chunk of metal bracket on there? There is no way I am ditching the AC since I live in the desert. :)

Dunno about that one...I guess you could always take a hacksaw to it if you really cared that much.


BTW, the bolts you need are m12 w/ 1.25 pitch and m16 w/ 1.5 pitch.

You might need two m12 bolts ( I did... ) and you might only need one...On my friends 91 GXL, we only needed one. The m16 bolt is for the PS cooler ( that weird loop of metal in front of the radiator ).

Some people say that the bolts have to be a certain length but I just got whatever I could find ( The m16 was VERY hard to find around here ), put some teflon tape around the bottom of them, and threaded them in as far as I could. No problems yet... :D

Sounds good to me. I may just take my AC/PS rack to work and cut a nice rounded slice off it to eliminate the top part of it. Might as well, and since we have water cutters at work, it'll be super easy :D

If the difficulty of this is not that hard i think i might as well do it if it makes the feeling the car much better

The first time I did it, it wasnt "hard"...Just kinda tedious. Having to find out what bolts I needed to remove, having to find out what size they were, etc..

The second time I did it, it was a breeze.
Id say the easiest way to do it is to disconnect the lines from the pump first, then take the pulley off the front of the pump ( I had to wedge a screwdriver in the little holes on the pulley to stop it from moving ), and then theres a few bolts that actually hold the pump to that ugly bracket. After you get that off, its pretty easy.

so what do you do with the lines? Just plug them?