Typical place for P/S pump to leak?

O'Reilly, what the hell? Check out the full retail price complete pump they sent me. The mounting stud on the rear has to go into the mounting bracket, but their pump has a collared nut on the stud, rendering it incompatible. I would have to grind the bracket and put a washer to make it fit. Seriously?! I'm taking it back. I wasn't gonna void warranty by swapping the stud out.

I installed the bare Crapazon pump into the old (now dented up) reservoir (using that old compatible stud/nut) but it's murder getting the pump mounted back into the bracket.

I have to have the pulley on the pump because the fan shroud is in the way of getting the pulley puller/installer in there. It's bloody hard to get the mounting holes lined up with the bracket with the pulley on though because the bolts don't have a pilot tip(or whatever it's called) to help line it up. It's very unforgiving, you have to have it absolutely perfect.

So, I have yet to get the mounting bolts put back in. I have it suspended with a bungee cord and the nut on the stud on the rear because I can't be in two places at once, holding it up while trying to see and reach it from the bottom to get the mounting bolts started.

I had to remove the PS bracket to even get the old pump with pulley out because there was no other way. At least the massive swivel bolt came out easily. Getting the bracket plus it's bushing back in is a bit of a pain. I can do it with an empty bracket, but doubt I could if I had the pump installed into the bracket.... so that's not an option.

By the looks of it, I would have to remove the fan shroud (and by extension drain the radiator of 3-4 gallons, remove the upper rad hose, and remove the fan clutch) in order to use a puller installer, so yeah it's preferable to try to get the bolts in with the pully already on.

Edit: I suppose I could cut a small hole in the fan shroud to give me room to use the pulley installer, then just put gorilla tape over the hole. Not ideal but that's easier than a lot of other things.

Edit 2: maybe I can cut the fan shroud in half with a dremel and get the drivers side half out of the way, then use something to attach the two halves back together after I get the pulley installed.

I might have to end up driving this thing to a shop without power steering (or call free roadside assistance towing and just say it went out) if I end up not being able to get it back together. Thank goodness for V-belts, since I only need the alternator/vac pump running at bare minimum to drive to/from the dump station here (it turns the WP too). I had to loosen and tilt the AC compressor to give room to get the PS pump out too, so that belt and the PS belt are loose right now. They are the two closest though, so I could remove them the rest of the way and drive with no PS or AC belts.

But of course, I want my dang power steering! It would be murder driving this thing without it. The power steering went out on a 91 Corolla I had years ago, and that was manageable... but I doubt this RV would be.

It looks like BBB's are the same way. Did Ford change the bracket on later years or something? That's not a nut you are supposed to remove just to install it. I suppose grinding the bracket isn't THAT big of a deal since it's kind of a secondary support... but still pretty bad that aftermarket stuff won't fit.

I'm gonna wait a couple days to let my poor fingers rest after the work I did yesterday. I tend to work myself so hard without stopping that I potentially insure myself and make myself sick. I had to quit finally when I felt like I was gonna puke and my left hand fingers were spasming so bad I couldn't straighten the fingers back out without using right hand to do so.

For anyone curious, here is a shot of how close the power steering pump/pulley is to the fan shroud on the 83-91 IDI vans. There is no possible way to get a tool in there to get at that pulley with the fan shroud in the way.




I guess I'm gonna have to suck it up and drain some coolant from the radiator so that I can disconnect the upper hose. It looks like I might be able to just rotate the fan shroud counterclockwise (when looking at it from the front) to get it out of the way of the power steering pump, so that I can get the pulley installer in there. No need to mess with the fan clutch, in that case. It'll be a bit close to the radiator, but I can stick in some cardboard to guard it against getting gashed. It looks like there is just enough room to get it in there without it contacting the radiator. Installing it requires less depth needed vs pulling, so that should work fine.

Then I can pull the bracket again, pull the pump, pull off the pulley again, drop the pump down in, put the bracket back, mount the pump to the bracket, then reinstall the pulley.

I wonder if pumping coolant out from the top of the radiator might be better to avoid air getting in vs draining from the bottom?

You can only pump so much coolant out of the top of the radiator. The level will go down a little bit and then it will be at the top of the fins. If all you're wanting to do is remove the upper hose, you should be able to do this. Anything lower than that, this method won't work.

IDIBRONCO said:

You can only pump so much coolant out of the top of the radiator. The level will go down a little bit and then it will be at the top of the fins. If all you're wanting to do is remove the upper hose, you should be able to do this. Anything lower than that, this method won't work.

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Thanks. Yeah, I just want to undo the upper hose from the radiator to get it out of the way to lift/rotate the shroud. It's so dusty and often gusty windy, I'd rather not drain it from the bottom since want to reuse the coolant and don't want it sand/dirt contaminated. I have a hand pump, so I can stick in a hose and pump it straight into containers.

That should do the trick then. If it's very windy, you may want to put some rags or paper towels in the hose and radiator just in case.

Hooray~!!

I was able to get the mounting bolts back in with the pulley on. I took a big allen wrench, just under the bolt size, and used the short leg to poke in and line up the threads with the hole in the bracket. Then it went in pretty easily by hand. Worked for the other bolt too. One bolt was missing, not broken like I thought, so I guess it has been changed before. I'm guessing they had the same problem I did and probably couldn't get the third bolt on. Oh well, it's plenty sturdy with 2 bolts on the found and 1 stud/nut on the rear like it was before.

I installed a cheap power steering/transmission in line filter with a magnet on the return line. The pump itself also has a magnet, but at least it's double protected now. I need to crawl back under another day and zip tie the filter in place, so it doesn't bounce around constantly.

No leaks to be seen anywhere (so far).

At first I thought the Crapazon sourced pump was bad, as noisy as it was when turning the wheel.. but doh!! It had pumped out all the fluid into the filter/lines. (Duh!) So I shut it off, refilled it back to the cold line, then started it up again. No noise now and it has power steering at idle. So, hopefully that's good for the next 10+ years. At least I know how to go about replacing it in the future... if I don't forget and if this forum doesn't go away for me to look back and see how I did it.

I have the old bare pump as an emergency spare. It's not that hard to swap out of the reservoir but it all has to come out of the engine bay to do it. I didn't want to risk putting it back as the main everyday pump since the shaft seal could develop a leak at any time. But for an emergency spare, it's fine. I ended up using up the rest of the leftover Dex/Merc from the C6's drain/filter replacement, but I also grabbed another gallon of it from Walmart, which I'll keep since it's good for both the transmission and the power steering.

You should be ok with the missing bolt I would think. I've run one of those pumps for several years with only the front bolts and not the one in the back so you should be better off having the rear one in.

chillman88 said:

You should be ok with the missing bolt I would think. I've run one of those pumps for several years with only the front bolts and not the one in the back so you should be better off having the rear one in.

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Yeah, it ran that way before and was fine. That wasn't the cause of the leak, I don't think.

That old huge O-ring around the pump that seals it the reservoir was very much bad. It looked like it was a square cut O-ring from being deformed and hardened, and it breaks apart easily when you twist it. That was definitely the source of the leak, even though it had no breaks in it until I tried removing it from the pump.

So, the costs were:

$11.32- Seal kit (I opened the bag, so I can't return it. Never hurts to have spares.)

$27.44 - Cardone 20-860 reman'd bare pump (It was listed as "used - very good" but doesn't appear to be. Was mildy dirty from someone handling it. I used the old pump's metering valve in the new pump, since I knew that was good part and didn't want to have to change that, even though it can be done with the pump in the vehicle. It means draining the reservoir and undoing the pressure line)

$14 (ebay price) - iFJF 3/8" Inline Magnetic Power Steering Filter (They're about $25 on Crapazon. They have been price gouging a lot lately.)

Total: $52.76. Not bad since it got a filter in that cost to help prolong the pump's life. Not sure it's really needed, but replacement pumps all tell you to use a filter for warranty purposes.

That's not counting the ~$15 for the extra gallon of Valvoline Dex/Merc I got at Walmart, since I used the leftover supply from a year ago that I already had on hand, and the fresh unopened gallon is gonna be kept for future emergency purposes. (I need to replace the probably 36 year old hardened short hoses for the radiator's trans cooler...)

The $77.xx (w/ $8.88 core charge) pump is going back to O'Reilly in about 10 days when I go back to town again. (within the 30 day window). I'll show them the pics of it not fitting the bracket and being different from the old pump's mounting stud, if they want to fuss about me cutting the tape that sealed the box and getting it a little dirty from handling it. It was never installed or used, and it did not fit the vehicle it was spec'd for, so I have every right to return it, IMO. In fact, I was gonna install that pump and return the $27.44 bare pump from Amazon until I saw that it can't fit in the bracket. Oh well. Maybe this Dorman pump will last since it's working upon installation.

Hm, I wonder if that pump is slightly weak, or if the filter is messing with it slightly. The steering wheel feels just slightly heavy, but it definitely has power steering since it takes little effort to turn the wheels at a complete stop. Maybe the filter is just restricting the return line flow slightly and making it feel like it has a tiny bit less power. No noise still. I just did the 1.5mi round trip drive at 15mph tops to the dump station and back this morning. Still no leaks that I can see, so it's fine as long as it works.