60k miles, 2.5yrs, ACDelco power steering pump dead, why?

[83GMCK2500]

The steering components were all leaking and to save time my father had all new or reman components (pump & lines - new, box - reman) purchased through a dealer by his trusted mechanic of choice. 2.5 years later the truck is my daily driver (see signature). Two weeks ago my steering started to get stiff at low engine RPMs. Later that weekend it was full on armstrong-steering at idle, even with truck rolling it took both hands on the wheel to get the job done. Had all of the invoices from the work done, checked into a warranty, no dice, warranty = 12mo/12k miles.

Around here we don't throw very many things away that could be potentially useful, leaky power steering components included. I dug out the old pump, ordered up an ACDelco seal kit (hey, the ACD pump still didn't leak, it just quit doing it's job.), disassembled, cleaned, lubed, re-sealed the old pump and swapped them out. Yay! Steers with a finger again.

So, wth happened to the new one? Time to investigate. Drained, pulled reservoir, looked inside and nothing floating around. Flipped pump over and saw the magnet. WHOA!

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That seems like an excessive amount of material. Held down the cover plate, slipped the ring out, pulled the cover, used a dead blow to tap the shaft/rotor/cam/end plate up enough to lift the end plate off. First glance, nothing out of place. Upon close inspection of the vanes...huh, I thought I just read in my reseal kit instructions that the vanes should have the rounded edges TOWARDS THE CAM RING. See #4...

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Yeah, I read the right...So, was my pump assembled on a Monday (hangover) or Friday (case of f*ck-arounds) or by the apprentice? Either way :devil: Every one of the vanes is installed with square edge out. Check out the wear on the cam ring as well...

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Now, if anyone has a tech manual or guide on these pumps and can verify that when brand new the square edges are out, I'd love to see the documentation.

 

[michael hurd]

I am pretty sure that if you take any pump apart with a lot of hours on it, the vanes will have worn like that, and have a square edge. At least, on the few air die grinders I have taken apart they are like that.

It is possible that the vanes are rounded on both edges from new, so that there can be no error in assembly... however I can't say that is for sure, it may be that those were indeed installed incorrectly. It's hard to say.

 

[thz71]

A lot pf the time the round edges face the inside and the ends that go against the pump housing have a slant cut edge when they wear out the become flat just like in the picture of yours

 

[83GMCK2500]

Forgot to mention, the old one with unknown mileage (looks to be quite a few) that I resealed and put back in was rounded edge out.