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Route around the pump?
I've spent a fair amount of time now in my Contour in EOC, and I find that the steering effort is quite acceptable. Also, I think that--for safety reasons--it'd probably be best if steering effort were constant (so that an emergency situation can be dealt with w/o having to think "wait: am I in EOC or not?")
The PS pump is right out where I can touch it in my car, and the inlet and outlet lines are, too. Thus, it'd be a 10-minute job just to bypass the pump and allow it to freewheel.
What I need to know is if this would eventually cause the pump to sieze. Is the pump mechanism lubricated by the PS fluid? I don't want to do anything that would take out the serpentine and (egad!) timing belts when the PS pump siezes. I could just loop the pump to the resevoir to "get a feel" for power-free steering, but that wouldn't do much to reduce pumping losses.
Another possibility woudl be to grid off the fins/lobes/whatever that actually pump the fluid, so that what's left could spin, but not actually do anything, or create (virtually) any resistance.
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