power steering or something more devious?

toastmaster7

Registered User
today, sitting in the school parking lot waiting for my brother i turned to wheel to straighten out in the parking space and noticed my rpms dropped to about 400 and about stalled out when i cut the wheel. i pulled in, put it in neutral and set the E brake. sure enough, every following time i moved the steering wheel it sounded like it was straining and nearly stalled if i kept going.

now, is this likely a bad pump and if thats the case where should i check, or is this the omen of an electrical problem that will eat me (or my wallet) alive?
 
Check the tire pressure in your front tires. If it's low, the tires will take much more effort to turn when sitting still.

Check the fluid level.

For the most part, the engine computer should adjust engine idle to compensate for the load when it occurs. But if the load is too great, it won't be able to.
 
tire pressure and fluid levels are alright, im not so sure about the engine mounts, but for the sake of argument what else might it be? also, a little later in the day the pump was still loud but not affecting to rpms, would motor mounts only make this happen part of the time?
 
I guess the best suggestion is to start with draining the fluid, and putting fresh stuff in.

Keep in mind it's Type F, ATF, not power steering fluild.

Maybe someone can type the procedure to manually pump the fluid out of the system to flush with new. I did it by manually turning the pump pulley, but it was kind of a cluster you know what. Lots of fluid everywhere until I figured out what I was doing. And I don't remember exactly what finally was best.

With fresh fluild, then see how it does.

A pump can struggle for many reasons, which is what the impact on engine RPM represents.

The pump could be worn out.
A line could be failing, such that as pressure builds it's getting wasted bulging the line, or something like that.
Your front end parts could be worn such that it is taking excessive effort to get everything to move.

The only way to know for sure would be with some sort of pressure gauge arrangement to verify pressures. But I don't know any of the proper values.

Just check over everything. Make sure all the tie rod ends are good, make sure the ball joints are good. Make sure all the hydraulic lines look good. Flush the fluid. Then see how it goes. It might be time for a new p/s pump. Or it could be the idle air solenoid needs to be cleaned up or replaced. The IAS should get a signal from the computer to increase airflow as the engine is dragged down by the pump. So either the pump needs more power than the IAS can account for, or the IAS has lost some of it's range.

Ouch.. more questions than answers... sorry.
 
Mike8675309 said:

Ouch.. more questions than answers... sorry.

no really, dont be sorry, it'll give me something to do this weekend :D thanks for the help everyone, i'll let you know what i find
 
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