Pump or steering box?

[EIB8400]

I have a 2000 suburban dd. About a week ago I was being a nice guy and helped a guy get his 2x4 ford exploder out of the mud at the begining of a trail. I ended up getting suck my self. Nothing bad, just not enough traction in the snow and ice to get back up and out. After I got out and back on the road my powersteering stopped working when I come to a stop or the motor idles down. Works fine when I rev up the engine. I put a new pump on and it worked perfect. Had it running for about a min turning the wheel back and fourth to make sure it was good. Put it back to gether, pulled it out of the garage got about 30 feet down the road and it started doing the same thing. The old powersteering pump had metal shavings in the resevoir. Do you think that I messed up the steering box or do you think that some metal shavings still in the system messed up the new pump? Any help would be great.

 

[wheeler]

i dont know if this helps, but i have seen many powersteering racks replaced, because they were leaking, and afterwards, it would have about the same issues, steer fine when you reved it, but like you were against a rock, when it idles. and these cars had no steering issues prior to having their rack replaced. a new pump did solve the problem though, i guess the opposite could be true as well. an old pump may not pump as high of pressure, so when you put a new shiny pump on, it theoretically could have screwed up old box.

 

[EIB8400]

Thanks for that. What could have gone wrong in the box? The steering shaft?

 

[wheeler]

i wouldnt think anything wrong with the shaft itself, probably more like the seals and all in the box. if it works fine when the rpms are up, id say new box, or rebuild it. although the metal shavings cant be good either. i hope that you didnt get metal shavings in your new pump, and kill that one too.

 

[EIB8400]

I hope that it is just the pump again because it is cheaper and easy to replace. I don't have any visible leaks. Would it be internal seal that I wouldn't notice leaking? If it were the box, would it have worked perfect for a little bit after I put the new pump on? I guess that I will have to flush the system and install a new pump and see what happens from there unless someone has a better idea? Thanks for the help,

 

[wheeler]

if the metal shavings damaged your new pump, it would be internal, and more than likely would not be evidently damaged by looking at the outside. and like i said, an old pump may not have put out as much pressure as your new pump did, and that could have damaged the internal seals in your box, which were used to having the lower pressure pumped through it. i wouldnt say that you have to buy a new pump, im sure it has some kind of warranty... and yes a flush is definately a good idea, if you saw any kind of metal in the fluid.

 

[EIB8400]

Thank you!! I will check it out.

 

[EIB8400]

Finally got a chance to take it back apart. Took the old pump off and flushed the system and installed a new pump. Works great.

 

[wheeler]

good stuff, glad to hear you got her going left and right again

 

[rufusbooth]

Glad you got it going! one thing you might consider is a filter for the system.

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=SUM-G4980&N=700+115&autoview=sku

I use one of these for my transmission and one for my power steering system. AM general used these for retrofits for hummer H1s that had static steering issues along with a remote Reservoir fix. It is amazing how fast one of these filters will clean up a dirty trans or steering system. Clean fluid means long system life and will catch the remaining metal shavings still hanging around the system that the flush missed.

Cheers,
Rufus

 

[EIB8400]

Thanks. I'm glad I got it going also. That thing was a pain to turn. I haven't driven it since I got it back to the house. I've been driving my 85 k5 every day since I got it going. Bought it a couple of months ago from a guy at work for $100 bucks because he thought it had a blown head gasket, needed a new tire and the back window was broken out. Turns out it just needed a $20 water pump and got new tires from a buddy, window of ebay and it runs great.
Thanks for the site rufusbooth. I'll check it out.