Disconnecting power steering
 

I've been thinking about doing this for some time. My pump has seen better days (the pulley has a slight wobble). It would be be relatively easy to get a shorter belt that would just connect to the alternator. The question I have about this is; would draining the fluid form the system make it easier to turn the wheels, and is there any potential for damage.

Draining the fluid would remove the lubrication from the steering box/rack & pinion (Whichever your vehicle is equipped with).

Leave the pump and the lines and just bypass the pump.

I had a leaking rack on my old Toyota and I noticed no difference between having the the oil in the rack and not in the rack. Now, if you have inspection you might want to check what they'll say about a disconnected PS pump. They failed me for it and I had to buy a new rack before they would pass me. It was a safety inspection though not just an emissions test.

What car is this in? It's possible to have a car that had a non-power steering option or one could be swapped in. Those are MUCH easier to manually steer than going manual on a power unit.

Fore Arms like Pop'i
 

Drove an 86 Aerostar for years, you can always hear a Ford by the whine of its power steering. My rack blew, so I started by putting in straight tranny fluid and finally I left an oil slick wherever I parked. I just pulled the belt, since it was a dedicated belt and the only thing bad about not having power steering in a power steering car is parallel parking. I would have to use both hands to jerk the wheel to make the thing turn. Freeway, just general driving was fine, but having to make a sharp turn at low speed will give you giant fore arms.

How much MPG will you gain by disconnecting it, littlle. Heres an idea, in your driveway start off by turning off the engine and trying to turn the wheels lock to lock, that's what it will feel like to parallel park, now do it 3 or 4 times and that will be the fun you get to have for parallel parking.

I think the previous idea about finding a non power rack at a junk yard would be the way to go, Ford Aerostars did not have a non power option and the rack casting were wierd so you couldn't swap em with a Taurus or Mustang.

I've had power steering quit in several cars, all but one of them I repaired it right away. I'm all for exercise, but I would rather not get it in an emergency situation where I needed to turn quickly. The one car I did not fix the power steering on was a 1962 Rambler American. There was almost no difference turning the wheel with the car stopped whether the p/s was working or not. As far as MPG, there was no discernible difference with or without p/s.

Re-adjust the pressure relief valve to open at a lower pressure. The pump will put out the same volume, but won't require as much engine effort to turn it. You'll have to make up the difference with armstrong assist. Some unquantifiable saving on fuel there.
Or as I did by installing a smaller crank drive pulley. The pump (waterpump, too) turns slower thus using less energy. The full assist pressure is still there, but real fast lock to lock turns uses up the available flow rate. I only experience that on the autocross course, but I did with the normal speed pulley too.

I've replaced PS pumps, mostly because the bearings inside were wearing out, and the pump was noisy. I've never taken one to the point of complete failure.

My mother's old 88 LeBarron had a noisy pump, dad was on his way to the auto parts store to buy a replacement. When he pulled into the parking lot there was smoke from the hood. The pump was on fire. He pulled in front of the store, ran in, picked up a fire extuingisher, and threw his credit card on the counter on his way out the door. Put the fire out, then came back in and bought a new pump. It was quite an adventure.

Forget about turning my steering wheel with the engine off . . . even with the tires jacked up off the ground it is hard to do and not recommended in the owners manual. So it will vary with the system - definately needs to be lubricated and leaking seals will cause an inspection problem and a leaking pump also from what I remember. You can always pick one up used.

Has it even been proven that disconnecting that pump saves a measurable amount of fuel?

I mean, when you aren't turning the pump is just free flowing through the steering box/rack and doesn't see much of any resistance and isn't building pressure.

As per my earlier comment with the '62 Rambler, there was no difference in MPG. with or without power assist.

In a 62 Rambler it may not be measurable my 65 Rambler had manual steering 6+ turns stop to stop - it was a hand full to turn quickly but it used to track the ruts in the road like lane change assist.

In my xB is see a little hit on the fuel usage when coasting in neutral when I have to turn the steering so it does affect it a little when it is working but probably not much at all under no load or else you would have a lot of heat build up.

NO
Yes.
https://media.ford.com/article_displa...ticle_id=27976
My FE went from 28 to 31 when i removed the PS. It made a measurable difference in both fuel economy and power.
I didn't know the 62 Rambler had magic PS.
Try spinning the PS pump at 3000rpm.

10% is a lot.

I'd love to get together all the reasonable-looking things that have improved people's fuel economy by 10%. Put them all together and my car would manufacture gas that I could sell.

I'm not arguing that this particular mod isn't responsible for 10% but they can't ALL work that way.

I'm confused. Are you saying that the gears in a steering box or rack & pinion do not need lubrication?

My steering rack is going on 2 years and 25k miles without PS fluid in it. No failure, noise or any negative side effects. You be the judge.
Even if you drain the rack upside down for a couple of days (I did) there will still be a film of oil left inside the rack coating every surface. Once you seal the banjo bolts to the rack that oil will remain inside for the life of the vehicle. This is more than enough lubrication.

This is a used BMW E36 rack I installed in my E30 2 years ago. I disconnected the PS lines, drained the oil, slipped a couple of very short lengths of hose (red) over the banjo bots and torqued them down.
https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...b08e66ef39.jpg

If you have the time here is the proper way to depower a steering rack.
https://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/depower.php?x=1
Notice that when the pinion comes out, its actually lubricated with grease from the factory, not PS fluid.
https://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/depower/IMG_0094.jpg
The PS fluid doesn't come in contact with the rack and pinion gear teeth.

My bmw has a 1.8 liter 16 valve engine with cams setup for peak power at the expense of low end torque. With PS still in place the idle would actually drop when I turned the wheel at a stand still. My friend managed to stall it once when he was really aggressive with the steering wheel at idle.

cheers
Justin

Yeah, the link tjts1 gave you is the right way to do it. For my driving 25,000 miles is about 7 months, so when I depower mine I'll do it the hard/right way. Mostly because if you do it the quick-and-dirty way, and the rack does get scored/begins to bind/seizes it's too late to fix it. But, quick-and-dirty does work, and a number of friends have done it. btw, 10% fuel saving? Possible, sure. Little engine, aero car, cruising at 50mph doesn't require much hp. Even a small power steering pump (mine is a second gen. Escort) takes about 1.2-1.5 hp to maintain pressure even when there's no steering assist demand.

otoh, my Merc Grand Marquis? Not only would I NOT want to drive that boat w/o p/s, but considering what it takes to push it through the atmosphere, I wouldn't expect p/s delete to help FE much.

Well with the 3 turns stop to stop ratio on my xB not a good idea - take yesterday when I turned off Rt 6 at the Saggamore bridge to go south on the Cape side of the canal the left turn after the exit ramp had a low unmarked island curbing in a wide intersection that I could not see until I was almost on top of it - without even a second to think I whipped the wheel to the left more than half a turn and missed it by inches. I would consider running an electric motor drive however but I am not sure how far ahead I would end up - I do have variable assist steering so I don't know what determines the amount of assist - the RPM of the pump or the ECU sensing the speed and electrically adjusting the assist. Seems like a small powerful brushless Airplane Hobby motor and controller for about $100 or less could run it on 12 volts easy. I too have felt the steering assist fight back on a snap of the wheel at idle straining the engine in the process.

Hummm I wonder what the Prius uses . . .

Variable assist is controlled by vehicle speed.

Prius uses electric power steering, as do other hybrids and many small non-hybrids (such as my VW). I wouldn't be surprised if newer xB's do too.

Not magic, just pretty much unnecessary. IIRC, the Rambler used sort of a hydraulic ram connected to the fairly conventional steering gear. The car was pretty light, so steering was fairly easy even without PS.

That's pretty well how it was in the Mustangs back then as well. Mine's not had its PS working for going on 4 months now and I don't really even notice it (though a '67 Mustang Convertible's listed curb weight, I assume with a V8, was a rather porky 3045lb). I'd like to get it working just because since the car has it it should work, but on my next car (early 60's Falcon?), I don't want PS.

JanGeo
I think I know the curb your talking about. I was living in New Bedfud for the summer, i just move out neer Amherst to a little hill town.
On my commute I can leave the car in 3ed (auto) and not touch the gas for about 5 miles out of 52 round trip. So I've been getting some new ideas.
Its funny you should say that about brush-less Airplane motors, I recently thought about that exact application. Those motors seem like they could go everywhere, there small efficient, and you can get about 10hp out of some of them.
For the PS pump it could have a switch on ether side of the steering shaft so that the motor turned on only when the steering wheel was turned more than 10 degrees (or 20, or whatever). It could get complex and have a pot so that harder turns made for more power.

I guess the best way would be to take a angle sensor reading from some sort of sensor (like throttle sensor and some steel wire, maybe some zip ties) and a speed reading (splice in to somewhere) and set up a little chip to control it.


I wounder how hard it would be to make a VW pump fit under my hood....

I have electric PS on my 02 Si Civic. Prius also has electric PS.

Be interesting to do it with an accumulator under pressure instead of a constantly running pump. Pressurize it under deceleration conditions etc.