hey all,

first off, a few weeks ago, the high pressure steering hose that runs under the radiator, rotted out, it completely crumbled. i replaced it, and the steering worked fine few a few weeks. took a long drive to go camping last week,everything was fine, parked the car few a few days and on the next startup, i had no power steering. i noticed a small leak from the bottom of the pump, only a minor drip but, the fluid would completely foam up and come out of the reservoir. seemed like it was drawing in air. i pulled off the pump and replaced the gasket between the 2 halves, used gasket material from autozone. i tried the black stuff first but, their needed to be a thicker gasket to allow the shaft to turn, the gasket paper allowed that. reassembled everything and replaced the belt as well, after doing the pump that belt had too much slack in it, i don't know how that happened. new belt seems to have a bit too much slack but, i don't know how to fix it...
now, no power steering, i get a slight bit of whine and i can feel a little bit of power but, not nearly enough. any recommendations?
when i had the pump apart i cleaned it all up, could i have put it together wrong, it didn't seem like i could have.

what do you think?

 

With the belt being to loose the power steering pump will not turn fast enough to provide power steering.
Is the belt routed correctly?
It sounds like it is not or it is the wrong belt, if you bought a brand new belt make sure you got the right one as there are 2 belts for the DII, one for trucks with ACE and one for trucks without ACE.
Trucks with ACE use a longer belt.
So...by the powers of deduction you have the wrong belt.
Your truck does NOT have ACE, if it does have ACE the power steering reservoir will have two removable caps on it and one of them will say ACE on it.

 

hey,


i would think the same thing but, i only swapped the belt because the original belt had more slack after the change then i remembered it having before, the new one has slightly less but not perfect, also, with both belts the tensioner is maxed out at the stopping point, should that be, i would think it should be slightly back from full.? i was thinking of possibly adding a few washers under the ac compressor to add a little tension to see if that fixes the slack and thus more power the the steering pump. are there any ways to adjust the stopping point on the tensioner?

 

No shimming, if the belt is not tight it is one of 3 things, wrong belt, belt on wrong, bad belt tensioner.

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it's on right, it's the right belt, i've never seen a bad tensioner but, it seems like the next best option. but, i don't see how it could be shot and still have full tension, is that possible?

 

With no belt the tensioner will flop to one side, it is spring loaded and the belt fights the spring and the spring pushes the belt tight.
If the belt is not tight...bad tensioner or incorrect belt or belt routing.
Belt tensioners fail all the time.

 

so, the belt was on wrong, looked right but, my sketch and the link to diagram didn't match.
it was only going around an idler wrong but, that fixed the belt tension. but alas, still extremely weak and intermittent power to the steering. doesn't seem like any air left in system. what are the signs of a failing gearbox?

 

Weal power steering will not be from a failing steering box, it will be from a failing pump.
If you did not bleed the system you need to, ontop of the steering box is a screw, loosen it just enough so that you can turn it by hand.
Have your wife start the truck, open the bleed screw just alittle, until air/foam/power steering fluid comes out.
Once a steady stream of power steering fluid comes out tighten the bleed screw back up and then turn off the truck.
Obviously make sure you keep the power steering full while doing this.

 

Hey Ive got a similar problem with my p/s pump. Well kinda. I noticed that there was a significant whining noise whenever i would turn so i looked at the p/s reservoir and it was a little low but more importantly it was pitch black. And, thats when my stupidity kicked in. I came here and read posts on flushing and refilling but it was midnight and I didnt have all the necessary stuff to complete the job. Soooo, with the engine off I used a turkey baster and sucked all of the black sludge fluid out of the reservoir that i could. Then i refilled it with the fluid suggested here and started my engine. Of course, after a few circulations the new fluid looked almost as bad as the old. Now, the fluid in the res doesnt appear to be churning at all like it used to.
Does this mean i killed the p/s pump?

 

What kind of fluid did you use?