I have noticed a fairly persistent whine that seems related to the power steering. I checked the fluid and it was full. However, it did look like there were a lot of air bubbles at the top of the reservoir. The power steering seems to work fine, it is just noisy. Any ideas on what may be causing this? It seems worse when it is cold.
Power STeering Whine
- Thread starter Filmpros
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the air getting into the system is the culprit. but its quite simple to fix. set your rig's front on jack stands, fire up the engine and steer lock to lock several times and you're good to go when you see steady stream of fluid in your reservoir (no frothing).
iirc, on the 80s, bleeding the system with the engine running doesn't work....don't know why it wouldn't, but fsm says to do it with the engine off and i think i remember a couple of people writing in that they did it with the engine running and had problems. i am going off memory and i have been drinking tho 
if it's cold, your pump will probably moan like a cheap whore no matter how long you bleed the system....
if it's cold, your pump will probably moan like a cheap whore no matter how long you bleed the system....
- Thread starter
- #4
So it is common for the power steering system to make noise when cold? I have never heard this noise before no matter how cold it got.
Do you have power steering fluid in there or ATF fluid. Quite a few people have reported that by switching from power steering to ATF fluid, the noise goes away.
What size tires are you running?
What size tires are you running?
Have you, by any chance, changed from smooth drive belts to "cogged" aftermarket belts? I did that, and the belts running over the idler pulley below the water pump sounded JUST like a whining PS pump. Changed back to smooth belts and no more sound.
Just a thought.......
Just a thought.......
- Thread starter
- #7
I have Mobil DTE 24 Light Hydraulic Oil in the System.
I am running Toyo AT 35" Tires
I have a Mile Marker 12,000 Pound Hydraulic Winch
I am running Toyo AT 35" Tires
I have a Mile Marker 12,000 Pound Hydraulic Winch
I have found that all Toyotas seem to develop a whine in the steering with time. In my experence Lucas power steering condtioner seems to take care of it. IMOP
Cruiserdrew
On the way there
Hmmm...I have 3 of these and no whining, so I would not thing age=whine necessarily. Now it rarely gets cold here, if that has anything to do with it.
It's usually a bit of air in the system, and I agree that turning lock to lock with the engine OFF is the ticket. See Nuclear Lemon's post.
There is also something Cruiserdan posted about adding Downey Fabric Softener to the powersteering. It sounded crazy, but some have said they have had good results. That is not a recommendation, look up the threads and decide for yourself.
x2
The whining is telling you that something is wrong, or headed in the direction. I could understand whining if you have it at the stops and are still trying to turn more, or with the tire caught in rocks that you need to pop out of, but not in normal every day driving.
And it gets cold here. It was 12* (F) when I got up today. Not as cold as some, but plenty cold for me!
x2
The whining is telling you that something is wrong, or headed in the direction. I could understand whining if you have it at the stops and are still trying to turn more, or with the tire caught in rocks that you need to pop out of, but not in normal every day driving.
And it gets cold here. It was 12* (F) when I got up today. Not as cold as some, but plenty cold for me!
not necessarily. i was given a used, leaking, but working fine ps pump when another member decided to put a new oem pump on because of the embarrassing whine. i rebuilt the pump, including mic'ing all the pieces and mine still whines when it's cold. the guy who gave me the pump put the new one on and it whined the first cold day. i always believed that whining meant a failing pump also, but then i've always dealt with saginaw pumps. saginaws are failing if they are whining, but i don't think that applies to toyota pumps.
12F cold i don't know about that one -23F on the other hand is cold 8am going to work sucked!!!
- Thread starter
- #14
Nat88toy came to the rescue. It was the idiot at the local garage who replaced the PS Pump ... which he told me I needed. He used lousy clamps on both the intake and the high pressure side. It was leaking on the high pressure side and sucking in air on the intake side. After three (3) attempts at getting it right ... they gave up. Nat cam in and found the hose was so loose on the intake side you could pull the hose off with 2 fingers. Nat pulled everything out and redid the entire job using much better clamps and hoses. Works great now...!!
I know it can be frustrating with very modified truck and such a shallow pool of qualified mechanics to draw from.
Glad it's working properly again.
Glad it's working properly again.
it is hard to find, I source it from a major oil distributor in NY, I buy it from them by the 5 gallon bucket or the 55 gallon. might want to find a local commercial oil distributor and see if they can hook you up
