Steering issues or not so in this case...

[Dsl_Dog_Treat]

Well Goldie has reared up again and sported off another issue today(gender issues I think ;p ). Needing her this weekend is a big issue running 4 days up to Battle Creek for drill/training and low and behold this morning. :***: I got 2 miles down the road and NO steering. I thought she chucked a belt as they were in need of replacing but not this soon. I stopped her and popped the hood to see the belt still turning the pump. No noises from the pump and still had a good fluid level with no leaks. Now I am baffeled and am at a loss as time was of the essence as I got a late start out the door. The Beef was 2 tanks low on fuel and no place was open that early in the am to switch rigs.
I chose to run Goldie on up as I could strong arm the wheel and was hoping the steering would come back. Well further down the road and a hard right turn found that my arms wern't quite strong and had a very difficult time turning the wheel. It seemed to have some resistance fighting back. Well 53 miles later and still no luck. Left her in the lot till chow time and came out with a couple of CM's(construction mechanics) and took a peak. Nothing was found out of the ordinary as the belt was tight and now a little low on fluid as a good share of it was now down the side of the truck.I fired the ole gal up and dang it, the steering was now back to normal and full range both ways. No resistance. :***:
Now the guys think I am full of and am at a loss.

Only things that we could think of was that a seal has become weak and was allowing fluid to pass by and hydrolocking the pump. No pump noise tho.
The second thought was the gearbox is worn to the point that there was a hangup on the worm gear causing the steering to bind up and not allow full travel even unassisted. Only 169K on the chassis tho and doesn't wander much.
I ran her back the 55 mile trek and no porblems. I swapped the belts off the Beef(keep em clean Mel ;p ) and topped off the fluid and took her for another cruise afterwards and still nothing.

Any thoughts????????

Sorry long winded.
Ron

 

[soulpatchfr]

some seal has deteriorated & clogged a line?
could your vac pump be a culprit?

 

[L.Wilkinson]

Did you have the classic pump "relief valve" hissing while running with no assist? That would of course suggest the pump was trying to do its job and the problem was in the box, through mechanical binding or some form of internal hydrolock. Or a relief valve unseated might just be that, by reason of crud in the works that later cleared. Otherwise a lack of any additional noise while stong arming it would point to the pump in some other fashion. You mention oil leakage and slightly low level, perhaps the pump cavitated its own little air lock and had to sit to clear again. Have you ever replaced fluid, these little systems work the fluid very hard and I bet most spend the majority of their time operating with depleated and burnt fluid.

 

[towcat]

DDC-
I'd lay odds on the pump being bad. I've seen steering gears leak like a sieve, spooling valves go bad, or the worm gear have too much slop. What you're describing is consistent to a bad pump. Not to mention the pump is easier to replace

 

[Agnem]

Obviously "manwell" steering is not for the limp wristed.

 

[Dsl_Dog_Treat]

Obviously "manwell" steering is not for the limp wristed.

OH SCHTOP IT(with my best lisp pronunciation)

That's what I am leaning towards at this point.
As for the fluid, what spit out was what would normally spit out the vent hole when trying to steer the truck not under power.
The fluid color is pretty nasty and need to flush it out a couple of times and add a different pump. Like from the beast..

Yes Mel they are now gonna swap some fluids. Let's have it.

I am with y'all on crud plugging things up and cooked fluid.
Any good thoughts on flushing the system to get the crud out of the gear box?
I am prolly gonna just empty the fluid out and put fresh in a couple of times and then change out the pumps.
So far today there were no problems steering either that or I just built up my "Manwell" steering arms.

One tired rainsoaked, sunburnt SeaBee

Ron

Semper Gumby

 

[rancherman84]

guess i never heard it called MANWELL steering,i always called it ARMSTRONG steering.

 

[Pacific]

I don't know if the newer trucks have king pins if they do I would check them too because when they get old and dry they will bind abit especially if the bushings are jamming up. I know that has happend with a few older trucks in this area.

I have never had a pump fail on me I have had pumps that leak and or have the Ford PS pump whine. The hardest part about installing new PS pump is you need the special tool to take the pulley off. When I had to replace the PS pump on my truck the local service station mechanics changed the pulley for me. I had to replace the pump because I broke the fluid return line nipple off the pump housing by accident

 

[L.Wilkinson]

I recently did a pretty good flush on mine without touching anything except the pump pressure and return lines. I had the pump off for some other work.
I connected a compresssed air line to the pressure hose, and left the return over a pail, then applied air while turning stop to stop several times, front end on stands. That seemed to remove most of the fluid from gear and cooling tubes, without taking anything else apart. Perhaps there is a method of flushing using outside tooling and fluid, but I defalted to the "jerry rig" method on this one. :Sly