Fellow Max owners.....

My daughter came home and heard a noise from in the engine compartment in our 98 SE

It is a squeal and I thought it was a belt. No leaking fluid, no check engine light.

I have narroowed it down that it may be power steering related.

If the pump should sieze while driving will there be any steering?

Can the belt snap if the pump should decide to sieze?

Is the pump replacement a major challenge?

I have been lucky at 160,000 and no major repairs until now!!!

Please let me know what you think.

JTM

 

Are you saying you know for sure it's not the belt? It may just need a tightening or even a replacement. Either way, it's easy. I can't say about the pump though.

 

im lookin at doing the lower sending line which is leaking all over my lca since 2007!! and, unless you have a leak or the power steering is'nt working i would say its probably the belt which is cheap and easy to replace. inspect the belts and see if they're loose or cracked which is possible if you have'nt changed them in a few thousand miles. btw, i have 210,000 on my original pump.

 

my car has the same problem. i drive a 96 with 170000 miles on it and the bearings in the tensioner/idler are going so i have to tighten the serp belt up every now and then. try tightening the serpentine belt with the idler to see if that remedies the squealing.

 

I have a very similar problem. My Power Steering pump whines constantly. It doesn't whine more if I am turning the steering wheel and it is 100% dependent on the RPM's. I'm almost 100% sure that it's the pulley that went bad. I've already replaced both belts and the tensioner pulley so they should be tight.

My mechanic said he would just replace the whole power steering pump. He said the pump works fine, but it's just loud as all hell and it's starting to annoy me. I looked on the forum and people have said that the pump doesn't actually include the pulley that the belt hooks around. I checked out an image of a pump on autozone and it does look like the pulley would attach to the side of the pump.

Is there a way to lube or grease the pulley that might help make it silent? What's the best way to finally make my car quiet?!

 

The best way is to replace the pump/pulley assembly.

The cheap way may be to spray WD40 on it and see if it helps