steering problem

[2boosted]

This is a weird problem, on the 2500 duramax, when I'm parking in tight spaces, the steering wont move at all, have to roll the truck a bit and move. Total stop no movement. I put in neutral and rev to see if it was because low pump pressure, no move either. Need some help diagnosing this. Heellpp !!!!

[tanz45]

Any whinning? Larger tires? Just cause you rev'd it doesn't rule out the pump.

[2boosted]

No whinning, no sound, just imposible to steer, fluids, ok, larger tires, 305-55-20, nothing out of the edge...any tips?

[tanz45]

Has to be the pump, I have a buddy runnin 35's on his with no issues. How hard is it to turn while driving?

[txarkitekt]

Has to be the pump...

+1

[2boosted]

Has to be the pump, I have a buddy runnin 35's on his with no issues. How hard is it to turn while driving?

Driving absolutly no problem...hell, I just make it move an inch and start steering....now I'm done with it...I'll take this -5000 miles pump out and oldskool her guts.....

Will try to post pics and so tomorrow of the gutting, I'll try to raise pressure, as oldskool I am

[oleshifty]

sounds like pump is on it's way. mine did that every now and then for a couple months before it finally died.


the one i replaced it with, the shaft bearing is already on it's last leg, has about 1/2 inch of play in it..but i'll wait til it dies, and get an oem replacement.

Curious how to boost pressure, POST PICS

[2boosted]

hehehe, back in the days when I was young, we used to lift K5 and C10 with home made kits and put some big (at that time) meats on 15" rims, 32-35, and rock crawl them...so when hitting rocks and mud and needed to sideways the steering for some traction, Pumps were little off, we took them out, drill here, shim there replace springs, hoses, and they worked better, just to make fail the steering box later, and also made some trimming on them....hehehehe, good ol times.

The pump looks kind the same to me, so tomorrow I'll verify this !!!!

[2boosted]

Well guys, the pump was exactly the same, with shiner oil deposit. So I took it out, went Allen on her...and the results, improvement by 30%.
No brake, total stop, easy steering.
Light brake, total stop, hard steering, but works.
Full brake, total stop, just half steering wheel movement to each side.

Before, at full stop, all conditions, no steering movement at all.

Here some pics.

The Victim : 2008 Chevy 2500 4x4 Duramax











Once the Pressure valve was out I drill the passage with a 1/16:



Then I disarm the valve, and since this one came without any shims below the nut I machined a 2mm shim and put it on the seat of the inner spring.



Then the aligner or bump stop was to close to the bottom so I short it a little:



Then I put it back together and check visually by the piston/valve hole if the spring was fully locked or had some space to be pushed, in this case, it had some clearance, so I put it back to the pump.



On that big spring some friends used to put some shims on the seat....I alone place those shims with no further mod, and never did anything, so I have always left it as it is.

Now, I'm no fluids engineer, but I assume temp on the oil will rise with a lot of steering use, and probably shortened the life of the pump and other hydraulic related components in that circuit, but at least is easier to steer now, and on future problems, well, I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

I'll test at full tonight and report some more.

[txarkitekt]

Awesome. Great work! Let us know what you come up with!