Pulley on the power steering pump is wobbling

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Looks like the pulley has broken free from the power steering pump output shaft. The pulley is held in place with a key (a small piece of metal in the shape of a half moon) that fits into notches on the shaft and inside radius of the pulley.

Do you have power steering or have you noticed that it comes and goes?

When the PS pump fails/seizes, then the resistance shears the key and allows the pulley to spin freely around the output shaft. To check, you can remove the belt that drives the PS pulley and see if the pulley spins freely. If it does, you probably have a failed PS pump and need to replace it. If the pulley is still straight, you can reuse it, but you'll need a new key too.
 
Thanks for the reply- The power steering pump seems to be working fine. I haven't noticed any change to the steering. I plan to take the belt off tomorrow and see it there is any play with the pulley and shaft. Just can figure out what would make it wobble like that-
 
OzarkMtnCruiser said:
Seems it only wobbles at idle- When you increase the RPMs it straightens out.. Bearings going bad?
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Could be. How old is the pump?

I don't know how to test whether the bearings are bad. If they are bad, I don't know how you would predict how much life they have left.

My experience with these ps pumps is that they are underengineered.

If you are concerned about it failing, you can prepurchase a new or rebuilt one and have it ready for the day.

Also, if you are concerned about being stranded, there are posts about storing a large belt in your rig that can be used as a 'limp home' option. I think the last post on page 3 by Woytovitch lists a belt that you can use to run the water pump and alternator off the crank pulley with a single belt. Might consider buying one of these belts too, so if your power steering goes, you can put this belt on and run the engine (but without power steering or smog):

https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wa...ized-help.html

Just wanted to add that if you decide to go with this 'limp home' belt route, you might want to put it on in the driveway first to make sure it works before you begin driving around with a false peace of mind. I think I remember reading somewhere on a post that in order to get this to work, you have to have the correct pulley on the alternator.
 
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The pulley is held tight with the nut on the front. so you need to make sure the bolt is tight. But there is a woodruff key that keeps the pulley from spinning. At one point, my bolt loosened enough for the pulley movement to mess up the key way on the pulley. So I ended up getting a new pulley and a new key, and keeping the bolt properly torqued.
 
2mbb said:
The pulley is held tight with the nut on the front. so you need to make sure the bolt is tight.
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This is 1000x more sensible than what I was advising, which might as well have been suggesting that you purchase a new vehicle in order to solve the problem.

Tighten the nut? Not complicated enough...
 
So what's the verdict on this? Did tightening that nut solve the problem?

I'm quite interested in knowing this; it might result in a significant philosophical shift in my attitude towards these OEM PS Pumps...
 
How hard was it to get it off? Need any special tools? I have two sitting in my parts pile, one wobbled the other the seals crapped on but ran true. If I can get off with normal tools on my bench it is yours.
 
gregnash said:
How hard was it to get it off? Need any special tools? I have two sitting in my parts pile, one wobbled the other the seals crapped on but ran true. If I can get off with normal tools on my bench it is yours.
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It was easy to get off. Normal tools. I just loosened the nut and slid off the pulley. If you could get yours off that would be awesome!! I will send you some money for shipping.
 
On GMs and looks like it here too-the hub between the center and grooves is sheetmetal. People drop them, pry against them etc. have taken rubber mallet-turned pulley to high spot-tapped back-trued-kind of like truing a spoke wheel. Don't have to get it perfect. Don't get carried away.
 
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