super hard steering

[Brian]

Hey guys, a friend of mine has a 2007 impala with the 3500 v6. She had power steering fluid leaking at the pump, so I installed a new one. The steering coolant lines were leaking badly, so I cut them off half way thru and put a u shaped loop in that to fix the leak. Holds fluid like a champ, makes no odd noises. I even replaced all four tie rods.

Now, it is nearly impossible to turn the wheel. We are talking a hurculean effort here. Still plenty of fluid, no odd noises. Could the rack be bad? What else could cause this?

Topic

[Daniel]

Why did you change all the tie rods? Were they all bad?
Bypassing the power steering cooler isn’t really a “fix.” It’s there for a reason.
Are you sure you routed the belt correctly? Did you turn the wheel from lock to lock to get all the air out?
It’s very unlikely that the rack would go from working fine to complete crap so abruptly.

[Nick Warner]

Could be airlocked. Pull off the return line and turn on the motor. Are you getting good flow?

Some vehicles are easy to bleed the air out of and some aren’t. Check back over what you did for the line. Easy to get it kinked and not always easy to see at the angle you are at. I like to lift the tires off the ground and turn the wheel lock to lock a few times to try to get the air out. Have had one that just didn’t want to bleed until I drilled out an old reservoir cap and put a nipple in it. Hooked it up to my vacuum bleeding tool and pulled some vacuum on it while the wheel was being turned. That got the pocket out.

There is also a slim chance that the new pump you got was crap out of the box. Was this some Chinese part off e-bay? Need to confirm pressure and flow to confirm or deny the pump being junk but worth looking at.

[Brian]

Three tie rods were bad, so I replaced all for. All parts came from O’Reilly part store. I did the proper air bleed with the front wheels off the ground. The belt is properly routed. I may have to concede to a bad rebuilt pump. The old one had a large crack and was leaking like a siv.

[Brian]

Also, I hear you on deleting the cooler, but I’m in Iowa. No high heat here, just long winters.

[Daniel]

No high heat outside of the engine compartment, but there isn’t a lot of air flow inside the engine compartment due to the air splitter and compact space. The cooler is pretty cheap. It may not seem like it is necessary, but it was put there for a good reason. You wouldn’t want it to come back to bite you in the ass. Just sayin.
+1 on the bad pump idea.

[Nick Warner]

With Buod on this. Pump likely a dud, and Iowa does get hot enough to damage that new pump if no cooler is there.

[Walter Cheryba]

Did you use the correct fluid?

[Author]

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