Maybe stupid question, ima ask anyway

Removing power steering:

I haven't gotten around to it yet, and i figured i should ask before i do something REALLY stupid during the process.

Background: My power steering, like most old Toyotas, leaks horribly. I thought i was safe when i bought the car, as it didn't leak a drop, but in the last two months, it has gotten to the point where it's puking a bottle a week.

I don't want to fix it. I want it GONE.

1) No, there is no manual rack that works with my car, to my knowledge. 2) No, i don't want to fix it.

From what i understand, i need to remove everything, probably flush the rack while i'm at it, and recirculate the rack, making sure that it is in fact full of fluid. So here's my questions:

1) Is there any problem with removing the system, and leaving the pully on the motor? Or should i be able to safely remove that as well. There are no other pulleys at that same point, the a/c and alternator are in a different location.

2) What's the easiest way, typically, to recirculate a rack? Will the system be under enough pressure still that just running a hose from both locations with a clamp not work?

Please help this mechanically inept goober lose weight, mess, and clutter.

What pulley on the motor are you talking about? The harmonic balancer has 2 belt grooves. You don't mess with that. THe power steering pump you can remove. I don't remember if your motor has a tensioning pulley on that or if it is adjusted with the pump itself, but if there is a tensioning pulley on that belt, you can remove that too.

As for the rest, most people, from what I have observed and not from my actually trying it, put a hose on one end of the rack, fill it with fluid and stick the other end on the other side of the rack and secure with hose clamps.

Now, where is your system leaking? Yeah, they leak, but where is your's leaking from? Our 5SFE Camry has had a couple leaks. One was from the low pressure hose from the resivoir to the rack. Cheap fix. The other was from a seal blown out. PITA fix, but about a bill for a rebuilt rack, if I recall. If your's is leaking from the seal, then you won't solve your problem by removing the pump.

Really, the best solution is just to fix the leak.

Dr. Hess wrote: What pulley on the motor are you talking about? The harmonic balancer has 2 belt grooves. You don't mess with that. THe power steering pump you can remove. I don't remember if your motor has a tensioning pulley on that or if it is adjusted with the pump itself, but if there is a tensioning pulley on that belt, you can remove that too. As for the rest, most people, from what I have observed and not from my actually trying it, put a hose on one end of the rack, fill it with fluid and stick the other end on the other side of the rack and secure with hose clamps. Now, where is your system leaking? Yeah, they leak, but where is your's leaking from? Our 5SFE Camry has had a couple leaks. One was from the low pressure hose from the resivoir to the rack. Cheap fix. The other was from a seal blown out. PITA fix, but about a bill for a rebuilt rack, if I recall. If your's is leaking from the seal, then you won't solve your problem by removing the pump. Really, the best solution is just to fix the leak.

The rack is fine as far as i can tell at the moment. It's definitely leaking from the high pressure line/fitting. (Let's use a plastic fitting for high pressure use kiddies!!!) And a seal somewhere under the resevoir itself is also leaking.

I was talking about the pulley that the ps is run off of. As far as i can see there's two pullies that share the same belt with the alternator and a/c. (A/C is removed, i left that pulley on.) And there's one more pulley for the power steering, which i haven't removed yet. The tensioning pulley is on the pump itself.

Your method is what i was going to try. I just wanted to make sure that for some reason there wasn't going to be enough pressure to blow those clamps off. I'm off to Deal's Gap again in less than 3 weeks, and that's not a great place to have a spectacular failure, of well... anything.

I'll get a chance to look at it further in the next day or two. If it's the rack itself, then looks like i gotta do that. Otherwise, it's coming out.

My concern would be the ratios for assisted vs. unassisted racks can be different. I seem to recall every car/truck I've driven that had a failed p/s system was extremely difficult to drive in low-speed situations... compared to a car with manual steering that was designed to be that way...

IMHO: Deals Gap + non-power P/S rack = exhausting. I think you'll definitely want to drive it around for awhile before the trip.

Depowering a power rack isn't a big deal as long as the pump is bypassed. If that's not done you are now trying to force fluid through the pump's chitlins and this becomes a big restriction. Most times a depowered rack is stiff at parking lot speeds but OK otherwise. Of course, YMMV.

It would probably be worth a trip to the boneyard to find a sufficiently large idler pulley and then fab a bracket so you can run the same belt (assuming it's a serpentine or something else runs on the same belt).

Ian F wrote: My concern would be the ratios for assisted vs. unassisted racks can be different. I seem to recall every car/truck I've driven that had a failed p/s system was extremely difficult to drive in low-speed situations... compared to a car with manual steering that was designed to be that way... IMHO: Deals Gap + non-power P/S rack = exhausting. I think you'll definitely want to drive it around for awhile before the trip.

The ratio isn't a big deal... i consider it to not be tight enough in the first place, and the wheel is HUGE. LOTS of leverage to be had. Your difficulty came because you were fighting the pump.

The exhausting part of Deal's gap is worrying me a little bit, but from similar setup cars that i've driven, once you're going faster than 10mph, the effort doesn't seem to be bad at all.

Jensenman wrote: Depowering a power rack isn't a big deal as long as the pump is bypassed. If that's not done you are now trying to force fluid through the pump's chitlins and this becomes a big restriction. Most times a depowered rack is stiff at parking lot speeds but OK otherwise. Of course, YMMV. It would probably be worth a trip to the boneyard to find a sufficiently large idler pulley and then fab a bracket so you can run the same belt (assuming it's a serpentine or something else runs on the same belt).

It's not serpentine and nothing else runs on the same belt. If it was, or something did, i probably won't attempt this, as i'm no good at fabbing up stuff like that or researching for replacements. The Celica community doesn't seem to like this mod much (as in nobody has done it), so i'd be on my own for trying to figure out something.

Strangely enough, i've found most of my info on this on Honda forums. Ugh.

Different car, but you may learn something from this:

http://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/depower.php