So you wake up one morning ready to drive the kids to school and head in to work. The sun is up, and the dogs are barking. As you are walking up to the car, your son says, 'Daddy! Look at all that water under the car!' -- and it isn't water. It is power steering fluid.
Another symptom is a 'growling' sound from under the hood when turning the wheel.
Gosh, how much is this going to cost? Well, expect $200+ if you take it to the shop. This DIY repair cost less than $50.
Over the course of a vehicle lifetime, it will likely become necessary to replace or rebuild the power steering pump due to leakage. The power steering pump is a hardened pump, where the failure mode is normally fluid leakage around the gaskets and seals.
So which to do? A replacement or a rebuild? In my opinion, the power steering pump should be viewed as a line replaceable unit. Rebuilding will not be addressed in this instructable.
The pump replacement is easy to do once a few tricks are recognized. For example, do not attempt pump replacement without locating a power steering pump pulley puller. Using a standard pulley puller may make the pulley out of round -- not a good thing!
This paper outlines pump replacement on a 1987 Ford Thunderbird 3.8L V6. The original pump lasted more than 300,000 miles.
Expect Total Time to Repair around 4 hours.
Have fun, and be safe!
--Mark
http://www.marksatterfield.com

Ford Power Steering Pump Puller

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