Power Steering pump/pulley question

[Casey]

This concerns my winter beater, a 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.

Last March my winter beater died 50 feet away from my driveway. I assumed it was alternator related since all my gauges were dimming and my blinkers weren't working when I turned onto my street. Since I was so close to my house I just pushed it the rest of the way and it's sat there ever since. Since winter's unfortunately coming, I figured I'd get under the Olds and put in a new alternator. Turns out when I popped the hood, the power steering pulley had broken off and was lying in the engine bay beneath the pump, which was what caused the belt to slip off and stop charging the battery that day.

Here's the thing. My power steering has never worked since about the week after I bought the car. It would work just fine with the fluid topped off, but in less than a day all of it would leak out and even though it would dump the entire reservoir out that quickly, I was never able to narrow down where the leak was coming from. I'm plenty used to driving this piece of shit without the aide of power steering, but obviously I've got to have a pulley there so I can run a belt on it. If I just replace the pulley, knowing that the power steering still isn't going to work with just that replaced, am I asking for the pulley to just break again? If it lasted thru the winter without breaking I'd be plenty fine with that, but if it's going to crack in a month I guess I'll just replace the entire system.

Thoughts?

[meissen]

Not being too familiar with Olds and their belt configuration, I'm going to use the LT1 as reference - if the power steering pump seizes it will either snap your belt or spin the pulley right off. If your pump is leaking all the fluid out and it's still spinning because of the belt, it's burning up and eventually going to seize.

[98blackbeauty]

Sounds like the pump has already seized. So now you need pump and pulley, probably power steering lines.

[ezcruisn71]

Can you remove the pump and run a shorter belt without the pump?
We need some pictures of your belt setup.

[TrickyTransAm]

It probably siezed due to low fluid like the guys have said.

Double check the Rack and Pinion. See if the rubber boots on each end are bellowed out. If there's fluid in the boots, your rack seals are bad, and you'll need to replace the rack as well.

Disconnect your pump and route the lines in a waste container. With the front end raised, rotate the wheels corner to corner to force out all the old oil/debris into the waste container.
Remove the old lines from the gear, and wipe up any oil from the connections.
Put your new lines on, but don't wrench the hose nut to holy hell.
Put your pump on and connect the lines to it. Double check your connections.
Fill it with steering fluid and then do a slow left corner/right corner - check the fluid. It should have gone down.
This purges the air from the system and gets you close to where you need to be. Otherwise...it will be noisy as hell, and possibly bubble over from all the air you didn't get out.
Do this a couple times, then lower the vehicle and start it up. - Get the fluid close to where it needs to be on the stick and take it for a drive 5-10mi. Carefully check the fluid again
Don't overfill it, otherwise you'll have a hell of a fire.

[Casey]

So as I was looking at the layout of the belt, it seemed like I might be able to just bypass the PS pump and run the belt without it there. I pulled it off and ran the belt, and thanks to the belt tensioner it's nice and snug and runs straight. However, the only reason I wasn't planning on replacing this all the "correct" way was because I figured it'd be a huge ***** to get the lines off and the pump out, but all that literally only took 5 minutes. I'll probably end up replacing it and trying to find out where the leak is since it was so simple to do.

Here's a pic I snapped with my Droid, you can see where the pump used to be right above the belt diagram.


1.jpg

It probably siezed due to low fluid like the guys have said.

Double check the Rack and Pinion. See if the rubber boots on each end are bellowed out. If there's fluid in the boots, your rack seals are bad, and you'll need to replace the rack as well.

Disconnect your pump and route the lines in a waste container. With the front end raised, rotate the wheels corner to corner to force out all the old oil/debris into the waste container.
Remove the old lines from the gear, and wipe up any oil from the connections.
Put your new lines on, but don't wrench the hose nut to holy hell.
Put your pump on and connect the lines to it. Double check your connections.
Fill it with steering fluid and then do a slow left corner/right corner - check the fluid. It should have gone down.
This purges the air from the system and gets you close to where you need to be. Otherwise...it will be noisy as hell, and possibly bubble over from all the air you didn't get out.
Do this a couple times, then lower the vehicle and start it up. - Get the fluid close to where it needs to be on the stick and take it for a drive 5-10mi. Carefully check the fluid again
Don't overfill it, otherwise you'll have a hell of a fire.

Thanks for the info, I'll definitely refer to this if I end up replacing it.









Oh yeah, another quick question, apparently one of the trans fluid lines decided to rust apart and snap because when I pulled this thing out of the garage after running it yesterday I had a huge puddle of trans fluid lying underneath it. It's a line that runs into the radiator. Does anyone know where I might be able to order a replacement line? Would autozone/etc carry something like that?

[TrickyTransAm]

Couple of things.

1. Double check the rotation of the water pump and other accessories from the re-route of the belt.
Make sure your not running something backwards.
2. Autozone/Advanced/PepBoys/Murrays are starting to handle some trans lines. If not, most likely a dealer item.

*Edit*

I just checked with Rock Auto, since they sometimes will have GM parts if available. - Nothing
Also checked Autozone, and they only show the straight line you bend yourself.

Does your car have a hard line that goes from the radiator, across the core support and then into a rubber line, then into the trans? Or is it all metal?
If it's all metal, you should be able to bend up your own with a tubing bender fairly easily.