[AlpineVan]

Hello all.

Like most of our vans, mine sucks in the steering department. I'm willing to accept it is never going to be amazing, but gosh it shouldn't be this bad. Here is what I've observed that I don't like:

Power steering is weak. If I'm stopped and turning the steering wheel, like in a parallel parking situation, the pump will whine and run out of "oomph", causing the steering to go firm. As if power steering isnt even working...once i roll the van forward or backward the power steering will come back to life.

Here's what I've done:
-Power Steering box
-Power Steering pump (been through two!)
-All power steering and hydroboost hoses
-Flush and replaced fluid .... twice
-All suspension bushings (upper/lower control arms incl. bushings and ball joints, both sides)
-All steering components (pitman arms, tie rods)

Has anybody else had these symptoms? What can I do to bring my power steering back to life?

I do have a winch mounted to the front, giving it more weight on the nose. This could be straining it. Who here also has a winch and what have you done to beef up your power steering?

 

[stent]

with all the work you have done, the only thing i could think of is the PS fluid still has some air in it. did you use a vacuum pump with a sealing adapter on the cap hole of the power steering fluid reservoir to suck/bleed out the air ??? the pump whine & loss of oomph could be symptoms of air in the fluid.............

 

[AlpineVan]

with all the work you have done, the only thing i could think of is the PS fluid still has some air in it. did you use a vacuum pump with a sealing adapter on the cap hole of the power steering fluid reservoir to suck/bleed out the air ??? the pump whine & loss of oomph could be symptoms of air in the fluid.............

I did not bleed the system that way, but I will try it that way as soon as I'm able to.

The way I bled it was spinning the pump over with a drill until it built pressure, and continuing to do so until I stop seeing bubbles in the reservoir.

I hope the three thousand miles on it with air since the replacement hasn't damaged anything ...

 

[AlpineVan]

While I'm here, I'm going to share my findings for the community to learn from. Take with grain of salt, in consideration with my potentially flawed bleeding technique...

Status	P/N	Part	Link	Comment
Current	LARES 12535	New	More Information for LARES 12535	Still noisy sometimes, and not always strong enough
Failed, returned	BBB INDUSTRIES 7312176	Reman	More Information for BBB INDUSTRIES 7312176	Noisy and not strong enough. Worse than what I pulled out.

 

[AlpineVan]

Vacuum bleeding the system through the reservoir seems to work.

One - im using a crappy harbor freight vacuum brake bleeder
Two - my air compressor can barely keep up
Three - a single session of cycling the compressor through the vacuum bleeder until its empty actually made a difference.

One more session or two and I think itll be good to go!

 

[stent]

One more session or two and I think itll be good to go! View attachment 284772

yay!!!!!!!! glad it's working for you!
great front end picture - i love the winch installation!

is that a hitch receiver under the bottom winch roller ?

 

[AlpineVan]

yay!!!!!!!! glad it's working for you!
great front end picture - i love the winch installation!
View attachment 284774

is that a hitch receiver under the bottom winch roller ?

Thanks! Yup, I got the winch, hidden mount, and receiver for free from a friend who was giving up on his astrovan build. The receiver is combination of bolted/welded to the winch mount. While I wouldnt trust it for carrying anything on the highway, its great as an anchor point and for maneuvering trailers around

I posted build photos of that, here

Alpine's 1995 AWD Safari Adventurevan Build Thread

Introductions are always awkward, but I'm Alpine and I live in the Sacramento Area. Been into cars for all my life, primarily GM and British makes which must mean I'm a glutton for self inflicted pain. I had been daily driving and road tripping in a 2001 S10 for a long time (pictured), until I...

www.astrosafari.com

 

[AlpineVan]

Bumping this thread since I'm still having P/S issues. Would like to get fresh eyes and continued thoughts on it.

The issue I'm having is my power steering pump doesn't have enough power to turn the wheels fully lock-to-lock at a standstill. I'm running 235/75r15 all-terrains at recommended pressure. I have a JOR hidden winch bumper and 12,000# winch, weighing down the front end too (edit: to be clear I did have this issue before installing the winch).

I've bled the system properly with fresh spec. fluid, even with an air bleeder. My current P/S pump is a LARES 12535, new. I've previously run a BBB INDUSTRIES 7312176 remanufactured, and had the same issue (even worse actually). The original pump was about as bad, too, obviously otherwise I wouldn't have gone down this rabbit hole.

My menagerie of questions are: Does anybody else have this issue, & is this a common issue? Is there an aftermarket higher performance pump option out there*? What P/S pumps are you guys running, & how do they perform?

*I know Redhead makes a high performance steering box, so I would have to imagine that that would need to be paired with a higher capacity pump to run it (?)

Thank you and happy new year