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Old 10-12-2009, 02:29 PM   #47 (permalink)
meanjoe75fan
eco-scrapper
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: New Kensington PA
Posts: 69

Big Blue - '94 Ford F-150 shortbed
90 day: 15.71 mpg (US)

Mexico Nuevo - '84 Honda V45 Sabre
90 day: 36.67 mpg (US)
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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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