fireman

I turned my steering wheel and spun the tires to turn the car around in a tight spot, had to stop and back up. When I tried to turn the wheel, my power steering was gone. I have no leaks, the resovoir is full and the belt seems to be spinning the pump just fine. When I turn the wheel, its just difficult, no clanking or rough binding of any kind, just turning without any power assist. I jacked the front of the car up and everything looks fine, was able to turn the wheel easier when they were in the air of course.

I would start buying parts, but I don't know what to buy. Don't know much about the sterring system, never had problems with any.

Any ideas?

3rdgenfan

When my friend did this, he blew the PS pump. Had his wheels at full lock and punched it and it blew, after he replaced that, everything was fine.

camarookid

i did the exact same thing!! it was 2 weekends ago. i had it at almost full lock and punche it and my power steering just vanished. so i took the car down to my local shop and the mechanic told me that my power steering pump was dead. no surprise. but he also told me that he had about 3 or 4 other camaro's come in that week with the same exact problem which i thought was funny. he said that what i had done shouldn't have killed my pump, but that it just died because it was getting old (80,000 miles) and ya so its the pump. about $120 or so if i remember right to get it fixed for me yours might be different

fireman

Yeah, found out it was the pump. The dang pulley shaft just broke about 3 inches back from the pulley.

Lazlo

Sorry to hear that, atleast it was just the pump tho. I'm sure we're all familiar with the "tight U-turn drift" move, otherwise it takes 6 lanes and a soft shoulder to turn these beasts around. Just FYI so you don't do it again, one of my instructors told me that most power stearing systems will overheat in about 8 seconds if you hold it at full lock, the fluid gets completely blocked off and cannot circulate.

Carlos01SS

Wow, never heard that, thanks for the heads up.