Newest FoMoCo product using same power steering pump?

[kishy]

Hey folks. The 84 Townie's power steering pump leaks pretty severely and accelerating in severity. If I can find one that doesn't obviously look like it's leaking severely in a junkyard I'll go that route. At the same time, I'd like to try to get the newest possible pump so it will have hopefully a longer life.

My understanding is that the same core of the pump, just with varying pressure regulators and varying fluid reservoirs, has been used on many Ford products into the 90s if not even beyond that. However, because parts interchanges will treat those varying pressure regulators etc as different parts (and fairly so), I can't get a clear answer to this.

What is the newest Ford vehicle that uses a power steering pump which will fit directly, accept the same pulley, and perform similarly or can have the regulator mechanism swapped out of my existing pump?

[His Royal Ghostliness]

'97 F350 or F-Superduty (looks like a dually F350 but has 10-lug wheels) truck with a gasoline engine.

Considering the amount of work to swap the thing tho, why don't you just buy a replacement with lifetime warranty? Junkyard items are always questionable as the mileage is really anyone's guess, even on the '90s vehicles with the digital odometers that will display 6 digits you still need to juice them to 12V to see the mileage, and even then you can't be sure if someone didn't already swap the entire cluster at least once (one of my own vehicles is currently on its 3rd cluster that I've put in).

Look online too, may just be able to score a NOS pump from somewhere. Ford calls that pump a "C2" model by the way, and IIRC it came about for the 1980 models.

[Tiggie]

I don't have the answer to your question, but have you tried to determine the location of the leak? I've fixed three of these over the years. Twice was the seal on the pulley shaft, the other was the reservoir o ring. Neither was that difficult to replace and the seal kit is cheap!

[kishy]

It's the pump shaft, yes. I had just assumed since it's been leaking for so long and so severely that the bearing surface is shot beyond salvation. However I'm looking at a reman guide and I don't even see a bearing, just a seal? Knowing the 'C2' bit is really helpful in that regard.

Buying new (reman) would be alright as well. I wouldn't mind resealing it but just didn't realize it was feasible.

[gadget73]

Last one of those that I did, the pump was cheap enough that it was not worth my time to take apart and dick with. The new pump is also much quieter, which was a nice bonus.

[kishy]

At upwards of 70 bucks for a pump from anywhere (shipping, exchange rate, core related issues all being factors driving that up), I'm going to look into a rebuild kit. 10 bucks if I grab it in the states and I may be over there tomorrow anyway. Just unsure about the whole "what if the shaft is worn" situation, but I guess I can't know that for sure until it's apart.

I kinda like the "supercharger whine" anyway. Character, or something like that.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

There is no bearing in these things in the traditional sense of the word, it's a hydrodynamic one like what you have in your engine for crank and cam. Basically a long bushing that is fed pressurized fluid from the back of the pump, if the belt was not tightened by a beast and ran like that for a long time the bushing will probably have hardly any wear on it even at high miles and the shaft will look like brand new. The supercharger whine you hear is from the business end of the pump, where fluid is cavitating - resealing the pump won't make that go away, and sometimes the darn things do it even when brand new. I'd say if she's running good pressure still (steering wheel feels nice and light) just replace the external o-rings and the front seal and call it good. Couple of reasons for that - the bushing is VERY easy to fuck up when installing the new one, and the pump itself can be quite annoying to get all the vanes and cams and stuff all lined up. It's not that it's prohibitively complicated, but it can be a bit intimidating especially if you need your car the next day and you don't have anything to fall back onto in case the repair doesn't go well for whatever reason.

Btw if you're coming into the States to get the reseal kit, why don't you grab a reman pump instead? What's the core charge on them darn things anyways?

[kishy]

Nobody has the pump in stock. However, Advance does have the seal kit.

For a pump...RockAuto it's about 75 CAD to my door. That includes a $13.50 core charge that I'd eat because the economics of mailing a core back don't make sense.

If an American parts store had it on hand...
with reservoir, $60. Plus $10 core = 70 USD = 95 CAD (approx) plus $10 CAD border tolls if we want to get technical (but if I'm there anyway, I count that out)

without reservoir, $40, but the core is $25 for whatever reason so it works out better to go the other way as the core won't be returned...might as well get a reservoir for that price difference.

I do have a 30% coupon code for Advance for orders over $50, which is cool, but since it isn't in stock anywhere I'd have to ship it to my buddy's house and then make another trip to retrieve it, so the economics go out the window again.

My pump has shaft play, it has lateral wiggle. That's where I've kind of concluded it can't be effectively resealed. But, alas, a man can try...

[DerekTheGreat]

I hate that whine, like all fords with that damn pump have it. Luckily our Townies do not though. Had to have the pump in my '85 replaced with a reman and it was louder than the factory unit...

[kishy]

It only happens to my '84 and '91, both of which have leaks, and only when the fluid gets low enough to not touch the dipstick anymore.

Given that the Townie's fluid was 100% replaced with stop leak and it's apparently leaked down to that point again, well...seems my investment in stop leak should have been directed towards a pump lol.

[DerekTheGreat]

LoL that never works. I put some Lucas Mucus in my old '91 F-150, came out like molasses and did nothing except increase the viscosity of said fluid.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

My pump has shaft play, it has lateral wiggle. That's where I've kind of concluded it can't be effectively resealed. But, alas, a man can try...

The shaft will likely be just fine. The bushing, not so much. Just so you know, these things do have some axial (in-out) play designed into them, it's the radial play that's some bad juju. New bushing should fix this.

It only happens to my '84 and '91, both of which have leaks, and only when the fluid gets low enough to not touch the dipstick anymore.

Like I said, cavitation, in your case cause she's sucking in some air along with the fluid. I actually rebuilt a pump this summer exactly because she was leaking but still making good pressure, owner of the car wanted to keep his OEM pump if at all possible as he was 100% happy with how it operated. The one in my own vehicle is a home-rebuild too, except that one got the rotor and vanes and such replaced with some more heavy-duty units while she was all apart.

[HiFiMerc]

A bit to remember when dealing with the junkyard pumps. Make sure the threads are clean in the shaft when re-installing the pulley. I boogered mine up. Messed up the threaded puller/pusher gizmo too. Lesson learned.

Ended up swapping in a pump with half the miles on it. Put a new shaft seal in before install too.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Shaft threads will typically NOT be any close to clean on a rust-belt vehicle - expect some nasty rust, and even after the tap treatment the thread will still look scary. Stupid things should have had a plug in there from the factory, but even new one don't come with one. I've seen some folks use a rubber plug, that always seemed odd to me since the opening on most is actually hex shaped (like for an allen wrench) - I use a shouldered bolt of suitable size, and some RTV. One can actually get plastic bolts in some hardware stores, tho I think steel on steel is just fine as long as it's sealed well (hence the RTV).

[gadget73]

Once the pump internal bits wear enough that it cavitates excessively, no fluid in the world will fix it. If its a slight noise, using the proper Type F fluid can help shut it up but a good tight pump is much quieter. I always thought mine was fairly quiet until I replaced it. It was quiet compared to some, but the new pump is really good. Nothing special, just a reman from Napa.


If you want a non-steel plug for the PS pump, go with brass. Plastic gets brittle and its very likely to break off when you want to remove it years from now. Or just a daub of sealer and a regular bolt and don't worry about it.