Intermittent Difficult Steering (1 Viewer)

[60wag]

Maybe the pressure relief valve inside the pump is sticking?

Power Steering Pressure Relief valve?

Does the 80 power steering system even have one? I have been having a lot of groaning issues with my power steering for over a year. Tried replacing the fluid, adding some downey fabric softner. Hasn't worked. Today i was dropping a friend off at the mechanic that i use when i cant fix...

forum.ih8mud.com

 

[tbasch1]

hows your belt tension, if the p/s belt is slipping a bit it could give hard steering at low speeds when theres high demand on the ps pump with low rpms

these are gear-driven! unless im wrong

 

[alia176]

these are gear-driven! unless im wrong

you're 100% correct!!!

 

[84T4R]

hows your belt tension, if the p/s belt is slipping a bit it could give hard steering at low speeds when theres high demand on the ps pump with low rpms

It's "tight" about a half inch of travel. I'll try this first.

 

[84T4R]

Maybe the pressure relief valve inside the pump is sticking?

Power Steering Pressure Relief valve?

Does the 80 power steering system even have one? I have been having a lot of groaning issues with my power steering for over a year. Tried replacing the fluid, adding some downey fabric softner. Hasn't worked. Today i was dropping a friend off at the mechanic that i use when i cant fix...

forum.ih8mud.com

Ohhh. Very interesting. I did have some (very little) fluid coming out of the cap of the resi, but just replaced it with a new OEM cap.

 

[Aloha Jen]

If burping the air still doesn’t fix the issue with the intermittent difficult steering, you may want to check on the big bolt of your harmonic balencer. I’ve read that if that isn’t torqued down properly (something like 305ft pounds) it can’t drive the PS pump gear, and more importantly doesn’t pump oil properly where it needs to go in the engine . That can cause serious engine issues, so worth a check.

 

[bigredmachine]

these are gear-driven! unless im wrong

no you are correct, they are gear driven not belt driven. i was just running down my normal check list for potential issues and forgot it was gear driven

 

[mudgudgeon]

Yeah that's what has me feeling weird as well. I thought maybe the previous owner had P.S fluid in and it had a bad reaction with the ATF fluid I put in, but who knows...

Ps fluid and atf are essentially the same. Not exactly, but I wouldn't stress about that.

 

[OZARKOVRLND]

It's "tight" about a half inch of travel. I'll try this first.

Did you ever get this steering issue resolved? I just posted a thread today that seems like a similar issue to yours. Would greatly appreciate some insight.

 

[84T4R]

Did you ever get this steering issue resolved? I just posted a thread today that seems like a similar issue to yours. Would greatly appreciate some insight.

For the most part. I just jacked up the front end and went lock to lock with the steering wheel about 40 times over 4 days. The thing that finally fixed it was when I was bleeding my brakes, I slammed on my breaks on a dirt road which caused my abs to kick in. That seemed to shake the last of the air out of the system.