Hey there all,

I recently rebuilt my power steering pump, and now it Is hard as hell to turn. I didn’t have this problem prior to the rebuild, it was just leaky and sounded awful. I can’t find any pictures of the pump taken apart, so I just went off a schematic, and everything went back fine. Before I decide to take it apart and double check I’m not dumb and put it together incorrectly, what would the odds be my steering rack is the real issue? After examining it, the seals on the driver side look pretty bad, but outside of being hard to turn, everything else leads me to believe it may not be the problem. But maybe because a line had to be removed, it allowed air into the system, and now it’s showing how broken it is. When the trucks front end is raised however the steering is very easy. Typical whine but I’ll get rid of that once I know the real issue. The truck pulls a lot, but I did replace the upper control arms and have yet to align it. I was thinking the pulley placement was wrong, but I’m not too sure. Maybe I should stop messing with the truck, but it’s just too much fun.

thanks guys, hope my first post is a good question. I post pictures of any work I do to contribute.

Gabe

 

Welcome to the Forum. Although I am not able to give some feedback on your question I do have a question for you since you've just rebuilt the pump. My pump is/was leaking from the large nut that holds the high pressure line. The leak was right around where the large nut mates with the plastic reservoir, I removed it and it shot out. I replaced the 2 O-Rings and now I can't get it to start although I feel that I am pushing it in as hard as possible while turning to engage the threads.

Have you experienced this during your rebuild and how were you able to re-assemble it. Sorry I am not able to offer advise on your issue but I thought I would ask. Thank You for your time.

 

Hey there,

from what I remember there are three parts to that area. The first is a cylindrical piece that is pushed by the spring, and the spring pushed by the bolt (could be wrong I did it a few weeks ago). I have a question about the rings you found because in my process I got rid of mine thinking I had an extra. Is the ring flat and does it sit almost flush with the bolt? And is it a harder plastic that doesn’t stretch much? I could see not meeting these requirements being an issue as it’s a very tight fit. I went to the junk yard and took a couple of the bolts from other fords which ended up being free, and had no issue getting it to catch the threads. Although I did struggle a bit, pushing in and turning worked. Outside of these things I’ve dealt with, id say take the pump off (the pulley will need to come off unless you have a wrench ratchet and patience) because something else like the spring could be in the way, or the reservoir isn’t flush. You can actually just wiggle if off and on while it’s there too without having to do a lot of putting back together. I’m thinking off re doing my build to create a log in case anyone has issues or faces something like this, I haven’t found much of internal related writing on the subject. I hope this helped even a little!

 

Gabrielvilla009, Thank You for your reply. Thanks to Jeff R 1, I was able to resolve the issue with fitting it back into the pump by (as Jeff suggested) removing e inner O-Ring and see if it will fit and so on. Well, why didn't I think of that Duh!! Of course I removed the inner O-ring that I had installed and the part fit and I was able to engage the threads. Next I went back and installed the original inner O-ring on it and same thing I was able to engage the threads without any issues. So I am not done yet as the Teflon O-ring on the high pressure hose got torn and I need to get a replacement before putting everything back in and make sure the leak has stopped.

Once I am done with that I will post the O-ring size that I used on the outer portion that sits right up against the plastic reservoir (as this was the origin of my leak) . Hopefully someone else with a bit more experience will be able to help out with your situation.
Thanks again for your time.