wisemank

Please help!!!!
Yesterday I lost both Power steering and my Power brakes. Any ideas what may have caused this. Van was fine in morning commute, then later in afternoon I went to start to move van and no brakes or steering all without symptoms. Your ideas would be great.

Kip

Blue Bowtie

The steering pump may be on its way out, the belt may be slipping, or the fluid may be low. A blown accumulator would likely cause an external leak. A pump failure may or may not be accompanied by a leak.

What year Astro?

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wisemank

2001 GMS Safari 4.3 2WD

If the PS pump is bad, then why the loss to the brakes???

brcidd

Power brakes and power steering on recent M-vans are both "powered" by the hydraulics of the power steering pump- open your hood and confirm the routings of the hydraulic lines.....you'll see what I mean..they don't use a conventional vacuum brake booster system......

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Automotive A/C Engineer with:

'95 Chev 3500, 454 Dually Crew Cab- 145k miles- Wife's Camel trailer puller.
'94 Astro- 370k miles
'94 Firebird Formula- 5.7L 180k miles- gone- blown head gasket
'92 Chevy Lumina Van 3.8L 264k miles
'86 GMC S-15 - 2.8L 154k miles
'86 Buick Park Ave 3.8L 199k miles- my daily driver
'77 Chevy Vega- 2.5L 175k miles gone but not forgotten
'68 Camaro 396 4 spd RS/SS -72k miles- my high school car!!

All but the Camaro and Firebird are white....

wisemank

Thanks for the input. It was indeed the PS pump. I removed belt and pully fell to ground! Sheared of internally. Once I installed new pump/pully, bled system it still didn't work - UNTIL I step on the accelerator, only then did the fix become completed.

Note to all: When replacing a PS pump the mounting screws & bracket on back of pump need to be removed and reinstalled onto new pump. It was also easier to buy new pulley and install than trying to remove old.

Thanks again!

Blue Bowtie

It's not uncommon for the newer series pumps to snap a shaft inside the pump, right where the round key which holds the pump driven rotor in place is cut into the shaft. The older series Saginaw pumps would last forever. They were so good even Ford and some imports used them for years. I guess that's why GM had to change them and screw up a nearly perfect design. They couldn't have possibly saved enough weight and input HP to make the sacrifice worthwhile.

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