Burned out power steering pump or rack?
 

Hey everyone,
Looking for some advice. I recently burst a power steering hose at an autocross event and drove ~90min home with no power steering fluid in the car… thus super heavy steering.

I’ve since remade the power steering hose, filled with fluid, and now cannot bleed the system. I’ve probably gone lock-to-lock 50-100 times trying to get all the air out, but it seems like the reservoir constantly has bubbles flowing as if the system is sucking in air somewhere. I don’t see any leaks in the system. I went for a drive and the steering is no longer heavy, and didn’t stutter, but it’s whining terribly.

Is this a symptom of a bad pump? Bad rack? Is it Possible that I can get more air out with more bleeding? Thanks in advance!


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Thinking pump. You drove 90 minutes with no fluid in it.

You’re probably right. I did notice the service manual has a different bleeding procedure than what I did, so I’ll give that a shot. I’m not hopeful that it’ll make a difference though.


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If you’re gonna take the rack off to do stuff, there are always these to play with:
https://store.partsshopmax.com/shop/...s/Z34SRSB.html

Oh yup. If i ever have to pull the rack, those will be going in.


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Well I swapped the pump, and no change. Still am getting consistent bubbling in the reservoir. I don’t have any violent leaks in the high pressure side of the system, so I’m thinking that there’s a leak on the suction side. I’m going to replace the suction fitting Oring and re-seat/reclamp the hose that comes from the reservoir to the pump.


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Make sure the suction hose going to the pump is not collapsing. Seen that before.

The issue was the GTM supercharger-kit-provided power steering suction pipe. It’s corroded and the male o ring surface is all f**ked up. Not sure how it happened or if it was always like this and just started leaking now…? Anyway.. I chopped up an OEM suction pipe and put that in with a new O-ring and problem solved! So I actually swapped in a higher-mileage PS pump because of all this, when my pump wasn’t the issue…oh well

I’ll post some pictures when I’m home next week.


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Woah this is super interesting to hear. I was having a similar issue with my GTM car so i just changed over to an Electric power steering pump. Which hose is the Suction hose? The High pressure hose? Also how did you drive 90 mins with no fluid? I left my OEM pump on drove home 15 mins and that thing was smoking like Crazy!!! thought it was going to catch on fire.

Burned out power steering pump or rack?
 

What were ur symptoms of bad power steering?

the suction hose is the one that pulls from the reservoir (hose from reservoir to the inlet of the PS pump where the suction fitting is.) mine was constantly pulling air into the system which is why I couldn’t bleed it.

I burst the PS high pressure hose at an autocross event (it rubbed against the part of the chassis and ended up splitting open). I had no fluid in the reservoir at all… drove home 90 min anyway..

I’ll post pics of the faulty GTM part this weekend


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My pump was dying, not making the pressure. As well as spewing out of the res and the suction hose.

Did you keep it slow on the way home? I started to get on it and i think that is where my Pump with no fluid in it almost caught on fire.

Im pretty happy so far with switching to electric I am changing the belt today to delete the pump entirely.

I was driving calmly but not slower than usual. I’m guessing that the pump without fluid got real hot and that’s partially what caused my inlet fitting to get so messed up.

How much work was it to go to electric PS? What do u see as the benefit of doing it?


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Here are some pics of the f**ked up PS inlet fitting that I mentioned above. You can see that the O-ring surface is deformed, which is where it must’ve been pulling in air past the O-ring. The paint on it was also coming off, and overall it looked like sh*t.

The O-ring was pretty old, flattened, hard, etc., so I replaced it with a new one from Dorman PN 926-157.

I couldn’t find an exact replacement for this fitting, so I chopped up an OEM PS fitting, which came on my replacement PS pump. See the last pic. This chopped-OEM part doesn’t have a bead on it after I cut it, but it’s under suction so I’m not that worried about it leaking. I ran 20 autocross runs with it last weekend and no leaks, so it appears to be working just fine.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...64b2a6094c.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...869b4dc861.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...e5b93eb23f.jpg


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It was about $650 for everything and then a little work on my end. A big benefit is less drag on the motor. engine spins a lot more freely. you also have the option for On and Off. When I am in the canyons I really like how much feel come from having it off. I got to delete a few pulleys off of the belt route so again less drag on the motor. Thinking about doing electric AC as well eventually. Then it is just Supercharger and Alternator pulleys on the engine.

Ah that little fitting. Yea mine was lookiing Crusty AF as well.