Power steering?

[YoungOlds]

My 1960 is a daily driver for almost 13 years now, it has over 112k miles on it and i think my power steering is almost broken or is broken. It still works and its not making a shhh sound like it needs more fluid. It is making a winning sound that i can feel in the brakes and it the steering column itself. It happens when i make a right or left turn. Can anyone help? its driving me insane. thanks, Connor

[OldsD88]

I am no authority/expert, but if you can feel the sound, it is accommpanying a vibration. That would tell me the moving parts are going south on you; such as bearings. I suspect it is time for a pump rebuild?

[toolbox]

My 1960 is a daily driver for almost 13 years now, it has over 112k miles on it and i think my power steering is almost broken or is broken. It still works and its not making a shhh sound like it needs more fluid. It is making a winning sound that i can feel in the brakes and it the steering column itself. It happens when i make a right or left turn. Can anyone help? its driving me insane. thanks, Connor

First thing to check is that the belt is tight...barring a bad or loose belt, it could be the pump. It's easy to replace...(going on memory here) there's just the bolts for the bracket on the block, and there's the two hoses. Use a line wrench on the high pressure hose if you can so you don't strip the head of it. IIRC it's not that hard to rebuild if you can get a kit, otherwise you'd need to hunt down a junkyard unit. I had mine apart years ago, and I think there were two bolts holding the "guts" in the housing (once you get the pulley off). I had mine apart when I rebuilt my 394, and I cleaned and painted the housing...can't remember if I rebuilt that one or not, but I've done others before.

My first thought is definetly just to check the belt though...jerky steering and noises are almost always just the belt. At 112K, I'd be extremely surprised if it was the steering box...I've driven rigs with well over twice that and never had a problem with a Saginaw steering box. Doesn't mean it can't happen of course, but it would be last on my list .

[YoungOlds]

Could i just get the one from my parts car and switch them/would it be hard?

[toolbox]

Could i just get the one from my parts car and switch them/would it be hard?

Sure...it's not hard. Just pull the whole assembly off the parts car and swap it over. Clean everything really well before you start taking it apart...it's easy to get crud in places you don't want it (like the hose fittings). It's a messy job, but if you're careful it's not that bad. Have a bucket handy to catch the old fluid when you disconnect the hoses. There's really not much too it...there's two bolts on the intake manifold, and a couple of castle nuts on the exhaust manifold, and the whole bracket and pump will come out. If the hoses in your driver are in good shape, just disconnect them from the pump and leave them connected to the steering box. Put the other pump in, connect the hoses, fill with fluid and that's pretty much it. If you get the front wheels off the ground with a jack (use stands for safety of course) once it's all back together, run the engine and turn the wheel back and fourth lock to lock a few times to help get any air out of the system. Lower car, and enjoy .
BTW, what's your parts car?
Cheers,
Scott

[YoungOlds]

my parts car is a 1960 oldsmobile super 88 hardtop w/the 394ci, i have some pictures of it ill post them one of these days

[toolbox]

Yes, definetly post some pics. Is it a two or four door?

[YoungOlds]

its a 4 door, sorry haven not been on i had a bad blow out and broke a peice of flex pipe to my cherry bomb, so its twice as loud and twice as toxic But its a daily driver and i love it!

[toolbox]

its a 4 door, sorry haven not been on i had a bad blow out and broke a peice of flex pipe to my cherry bomb, so its twice as loud and twice as toxic But its a daily driver and i love it!

I had a cherry bomb fall off my '63 Galaxie driving down the highway when I was on my way from Montana to Wyoming...it was um, a somewhat less fun trip .