Rattling P/S pump

[a67]

Success. It is quiet and have pump pressure back. Short side: the crank pulleys were moving, and I put the original pump back in.

Long side: used a piece of heater hose and the clacking was a little louder once I moved to the inner area of the crank pulleys. Hmm, OK with some luck the crank pulley is cracked. That way I'll know that this is the issue.

Nope, pull crank pulleys and no cracks. OK, now what. The three mounting bolt holes are elongated. This is a triple groove pulley set up. Inner pulley with two grooves, then an outer with one groove (for the P/S pump).

Can see that there was motion as the metal under the mounting bolt heads (with split locks) was worn away. Along with the egg shaped holes.

So i scraped the paint off the pulleys where they met (I like to paint everything, so this is paint I applied years ago). Cleaned up the metal around the bolt holes, the split locks like to dig.

Then used three GM bolts with integral washers (shouldered heads) for pulley mounting. Also used a GM bolt and washer to retain the damper. It was originally an aftermarket bolt/washer.

Bolted the pulleys back to the damper along with the damper bolt with some blue Locktite. Put the belts back on, and couldn't bring myself to start the engine.

The Locktite needs to set up, right, lol. Anyway, finally hit the key, and, and, no noise. Son-of-a-gun. So that fixed that.

But, still no power assist. Ran the engine for about 20 minutes, rev'd it up, held it, let it idle, rev'd it up. Dang, still no assist.

OK, time to pull the pump back off. Do that, open it up, check the pump cam. Figured that just maybe I put it in backwards. Nope, it's in the right way.

I'll deal with that later. Grab the original pump body assembly, install that into the reservoir and reinstall onto engine. Bam, have pump pressure. Bleed, fill, short drive, check level, life is good.

Now, I feel as though the pulley noise will return. A quick rev'ing engine with the alt, A/C, and P/S loads will loosen it up again. When it does the game plan will be to strengthen the mounting. Increase the pulley mounting bolts to 7/16" or 1/2". True up the two piece pulley alignment and weld them together (the pulleys, not to the damper).

Maybe even find some time to pin the pulleys to the damper. We'll see what happens.



a67