Power Steering Pump - 07/04/2014

At idle the power steering pump had decided it wasn't going to provide assist anymore. This is bad, because at idle is when you need the assist the most! It was fine until it got warm, then once warmed up it was like trying to turn a stick in mud. Hard to park and turn, made for a very unsafe situation. And because of the steering box's burning desire to turn right ALL the time, it made it even worse when trying to turn left. A lack of power steering is not manual steering, manual steering has different gear ratios and arm angles\lengths to make the vehicle easier to turn. I decided to fix both at once! I pulled off the "new" steering box and sent it back to the manufacturer for a refund. Time to hunt for a used Jeep Grand Cherokee box and the fitting adapters.



After pulling the old one off (which I didn't take pictures of because I was so angry while doing it) I needed to get the pitman arm and nut back on. It is a 1 5/16" nut, which requires a 3/4" drive socket set as I can't find any 1/2" sockets or wrenches locally any bigger than 1 1/4" (and even that's a challenge as well). Since I didn't want to buy a single socket and bar\ratchet, I got an entire set. Now I can do rear ends and truck suspension parts too! This box weighs 30lbs...



The ratchet is massive and quite solid. Very heavy.



Nut is tightened down more than it was when I got the "new" steering box back from the shop.



Yeah, old box. Oh well.



Time to remove the old power steering pump. It needs to be shimmed up too since it's missing a washer.



Draining the fluid. Gotta catch it all!



Now it's off. Pretty simple job this time around.



It's apart! Pulley pressed off (thank goodness for impact guns) and all brackets removed.



New pump out of the bag. It looks nice, but the paint is not primed so it falls off at the slightest touch. Oh well. Bonus points for trying.



Driving the pulley on with the proper tool.



It actually didn't take long at all. I remember it taking much longer in the past.



Needs a shim to align it. It was missing, specific to Pontiac.



I gave it my best try! I ran out of washers too, need to get some more. It's better, but not perfect. Needs another 1 or 2. As you can see in the previous picture, the threads are even on both bolts. This isn't correct as the shimmed one needs to be about 1/2" longer to account for the shim. Making due with what we have!



Pump is back on!



All mounted back up and belts tensioned.



Fittings are installed and tightened down.



And it's done! All functional again after a road test. Obligatory spill of transmission fluid on the radiator hose and steering box...

Not too bad of a job. 45 minutes from start to finish. I could almost do it for a living as book time is around 1.5 hours or so... I'll address the steering box later with a better one and new rag joint too.

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Last updated July 4th, 2014