power steering pulley wobbling
 

92 4runner sr5 with a 3vz engine. the power steering pulley is wobbling significantly. I am going to take off the belts this weekend and test all the pulleys. I guess my question is, if it is the power steering pulley should i replace the pump too?

oh. the belts are fairly new. no damage anyway.

I wouldn't replace a working pump. I've rebuilt mine once already to fix the leaks. My pulley's kinda tweaked(appears to wobble slightly)too. Been like that for years. It doesn't cause any issues though. The belt doesn't make any noise or have a poor wear pattern.

Unless you can tell the pump's obviously messed up when you get to lookin' closer at it, I say "don't try and fix what ain't broke".;)

EDIT:And trust me...you'll be plenty sick of the whole thing once you see how difficult it is just getting that nut loose to remove the pulley. You won't want to replace the pump after the headache that'll give ya.:laugh:

I have the same problem as you:)...check your harmonic balancer,I'm not saying that is your problem, it may be going out just like mine is, and causing that wobble.....mine wobbles mostly where it comes off the harmonic balancer and between the ps pump pulley

How I found this out is....I replaced the ps pump, ps pump pulley , belt and the ps pulley on the front of the harmonic balancer, to only find out that the balancer is going bad and wobbling (not the pulleys or belt on mine looks like it though but there all new)....here is a video of my wobbling ps belt between the harmonic balancer and ps pump pulley notice the harmonic balancer ps pulley bouncing around also
[YOUTUBE]PFCShgw8ibo[/YOUTUBE]
here is a video of the harmonic balancer jumping around with no belts on at all
[YOUTUBE]LWmFXgwNCSM[/YOUTUBE]

thanks i will check out the stabilizer as well. i think my pulley is wobbling more than that plus i should have mentioned this earlier, it is ticking as well. I plan on working on it this afternoon if the weather stays good.

Are you sure it the PS that's ticking? Sometimes that ticking sound is the valve lifters.

yes the valve lifters do make a lot of ticking noise on these 3.0s....also the fuel pressure regulator too....it makes a loud clicking noise when the 3.0 is running

I can't be sure it is the pump but it does sound like it is that area. when i looked at the pump today i was able to manually pull on the pulley (or pulley and axle) and slide it in and out of the pump making a loud tick. given that the pulley is usually under high rpm this could happen every couple of seconds. But when I went to tighten the pulley it didn't make a difference so i was thinking that maybe the axle has come loose inside the pump or a bushing has worn out in between the pulley and pump...

nothing is broken on it yet so i don't need I to fix anything i just want to know if i am in danger of having belts and pulleys blow up on me while i am driving down the road.

my ps pump shaft will move in and out about 1/8"....that is normal for whatever reason...this is my second ps pump and that shaft has the same movement
can you take a video of the wobbling

I have been sick so this is the first i have checked the post. Yes i could get a video of it. i should have it in a few days.

sorry that you have been sick that is no fun, and not much to do but watch Jerry Springer.

Geez, I have never been able to get the pulley off my pump. Trust me, I've tried. Im sure it is just from my inexperience tho. The big bolt that hold the power steering on, well, that's stripped. The mechanics at the dealership did it. One reason I started to learn how to perform my own mechanic work.

I bent my pulley using a pulley puller. Mine is pretty wobbly. Its been this way for years.

Keep us posted.

Get well.

bent your pulley using a puller? I've heard of that happening... going to have to pull my pulley in the near future when I replace the ps pump...
my wrench told me to make sure to hit it with lots of WD40/PB blaster type stuff for several days before you attempt the "pull"... If only toyota had used a GM type pulley with the cast on puller flange around the post we would not have these issues...
for the stripped bolt there are some products that you can spray/dribble into the area that may allow enough contact for the remaining threads to work... other than that you may have to buy/rent a right angle drill and just drill out the threaded portion of the bolt, than go to a custom over size bolt or maybe if you were very careful helicoil the damaged threads...

.....I have kinda the same issue...this is what mine looks like http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ker/PSassy.png
I'm still trying to figure it out.