Sinking Creek 4WD Association

My Yoyo don't steer no more......

On my way to the shooting range this morning, while coasting down the on ramp to 460, I lost my power steering. But driving on the highway it seemed to handle like normal. Long story short is that it doesn't seem to have any power steering at idle or low rpm. Sitting still, if I get on the gas in neutral it steers fine at about 1500 rpm upwards.

The belt is tight, fluid looks good, and no leaks that I can see. Apparently my gen Tacoma has had power steering pump leak issues, but that doesn't appear to be my problem. Pump also isn't making any odd noises, even when I use my Popeye arms to turn it lock to lock, pump sounds fine.

Looking at the FSM and doing a little reading, there are two valves on the pump body. An air control valve that is vacuum operated and increases the rpm from idle when the wheels are fully locked to keep the engine running. I haven't really checked its function cause it's super hard to turn my wheels lock to lock at idle right now. But I don't think it has anything to do with my problem.

The other vale is a flow control valve that I can't find much info on, but I think its sole purpose is to increase the pressure at low rpms to maintain power steering. Anybody know this to be true? Sounds like it could be my problem. Its mounted in the pump body in line with the high pressure line. And has some spring thingy that could be jammed. I hit on it with a bfh and it didn't fix anything.

I guess my question is does anyone know exactly what this thing does and how it works? I am sort of strapped for time and don't want to spend a bunch of evenings replacing random parts to find out what my issue is.

Bounced it off the rev limiter lately? It's a long shot, but there's a pressure relief valve on most power steering pumps. Sometimes they stick. I've had that happen a couple times in the 80 after some prolonged rev-limiter sessions. The fix was always to bounce it off the rev limiter again and it would unstick

Arya Ebrahimi wrote:Bounced it off the rev limiter lately? It's a long shot, but there's a pressure relief valve on most power steering pumps. Sometimes they stick. I've had that happen a couple times in the 80 after some prolonged rev-limiter sessions. The fix was always to bounce it off the rev limiter again and it would unstick

Hmmm....I may have done some high rpm donuts yesterday morning in the commuter lot. Don't know about no rev limiter but it's worth a shot to go out and stand on the gas and see if that fixes it. Maybe I'll do that while hitting it with a hammer again?

And the whole low rpm no power steering - high rpm yes power steering has gone away. Drove it 400 mi back to Maryland yesterday evening and it has no power steering all the time at any rpm.

I would just think that you pump has gone bad, that wouldnt be unusual on a 10 year old vehicle.

BadAssEddie wrote:I would just think that you pump has gone bad, that wouldnt be unusual on a 10 year old vehicle.

I don't want to believe that because I spent a lot of money on this truck so I wouldn't have to wrench on it. But yea you right it is 10 yrs old. I need to go take it apart, I'm lacking motivation to stand in the street in the cold with barely any tools. Plus my sister has a 2008 Mazda 6 that I can borrow to go to work this week

Sounds like a blown pump to me as well.

Or you could drive with no power steering all month and come back to school looking like me

My pump is bad from Harlan and I'm still driving on it....knock on wood. Def needs replacing though.

BadAssEddie wrote:Or you could drive with no power steering all month and come back to school looking like me

I drove my CJ as a dd for years without power steering and I never got close to approaching the level of muscular man you are Alec

97JEEPTJ wrote:My pump is bad from Harlan and I'm still driving on it....knock on wood. Def needs replacing though.

Yea I was wondering whatever happened with that. I'm back to the flow vale theory. Why do you ask? Because I was fighting to get the bitch to turn a hard left into dunkin donuts this morning and POOF my power steering works again. Been working all day, just fine.

As far as I know pumps are pumps. Bad pump is a bad pump. Valves on the other hand can stick, malfunction, work sometimes not work other times. And because it is currently working I'm not wrenching on shit. Although I want to try and get that valve from Toyota cause I'm sure this problem will show its face again in the future.

And Ary, I did leave my parents neighborhood this morning at 5500 rpm to see if that would help. It didn't immediately, but about 15 min later is when it started working again. Who knows.