01'RollinCoal

hey everyone, im in need of some help agian, last weekend me and a few buddies decided to go play in the mud, well while we were out there i slid down into a pretty deep hole and had water over the top of the passengers headlight and about a third of the way up the door in the cab, the truck stayed running and everything worked fine after pulled out, about a day later i had intermediate power steering and now i have no power steering or brakes, this has happened before and it would go back to normal after i washed it real good, any ideas?

gorms

The power steering pump, steering box, and hydroboost don't like water in them. First step would be to siphon out all the old fluid from the power steering resevoir a few times and replace with synthetic fluid and see if you get anywhere. Turkey baster type tool works well. I recommend doing this with the front wheels off the ground, turning the wheel lock to lock in between flushes. If you're luck the fluid will just be foamy, which doesn't work well with any air in the system. Good luck.

totalloser

Sometimes funny angles and high rpm will make a random piece of debris in the system flow back up to the pump and hang up the relief piston. If your fluid looks relatively normal, this is probably what's going on.

All you have to do is suck out the reservoir, pull the pressure line on the back of the pump, and remove the pressure fitting nut. Poke at the piston (straight back into the housing) and you'll feel it jump out. Fish it out with a magnet probe and try and swab it out a bit and put it back together. It will probably take a few shutdowns to purge all the air out, and getting it to prime initially is "interesting" sometimes. Plan on topping it off a few times as the air bleeds out of the system.

01'RollinCoal

well i drained it all out with the turkey baster, and couldnt see any signs of water so i filled it back up, my steering worked for about 30 seconds until i pushed the brakes and i lost power steering again, ill try your piston cleaning idea tonight and see if anything good happens, any help on priming and gettting all the air out of the system?? thanks alot for the help guys

totalloser

I'd top the tank, jack up the front, start it, and swing the steering from one side to the other. Then top off again. If it's foamy, it may take a few starts and shutdowns to purge the air. On mine it takes many shutdowns, but I have ram assist and a cooler, so there's lines all over the place to purge out.

A spare magnet might be a good idea too. You can drop one right in the filler cap and stick it to the side of the reservoir. It's supposed to have one in there, but two won't hurt. The inlets are about 1/2" if I remember correctly, so a Quarter size magnet would be very safe.

PS My pile of GARBAGE AGR steering box fell apart (junk incorrect sector shaft bearings) and stray pieces kept finding their way into the relief after a new steering box, several flushes and a wiped out pump. If you find any strange pieces of metal this may turn into a long term problem.

On mine the eventual (albiet redneck) solution was to pull the pump reservoir, put in two neodynium magnets in it and run it long enough to catch all the junk. I then tore down the AGR box, machined new bronze bearings, and installed it with a new pump. No problems since... knocking on wood...