Ever had the plastic power steering dipstick melt?

[jhe.1973]

Hi Everyone,

Originally Posted by Myself

Usually this sort of thing happens when somebody slips a prybar down in there to get the belt "tight".......well.........that's too tight.

Thanks "Myself" for mentioning the prybar thing. I hadn't thought of that but it sure makes sense with all the horrible work I've seen over the years!

We're visiting my daughter again so I got a chance to slip away to my favorite old timey junkyard. Found this Chevy with the air conditioning compressor still on and I think it proved my hunch correct:



The double pulley only uses one groove to drive the pump, the second acts as an idler for the compressor.

I'm all the more sure that I side loaded the pump too much by using two belts to drive it.

I also picked up a bunch of power steering hose ends for the larger of the two fittings:



When I can get back to working on the truck I hope to rig up a hydraulic pump/electric motor I have to flush/reverse flush the steering box to try dislodging the particles that are causing the direction valve to stick.

It looks like these larger 11/16 inch flare nuts are not available separately. The 5/8 inch nuts are easy to find.