my P/S belt looks like its about to go out. i have to drive bout 20 miles before i can replace it and i was wondering, does the fan need the P/S belt to turn?

 

No. If the belt breaks, you lose your PS only... unless the broken belt gets tangled up in the other belts and breaks something else. If it really looks bad like it's going to break any minute, the wise thing to do would be to remove it now and just drive the 20 miles with no power steering.

 

If you don't have any other form of transportation and are in a bind, just cut the P/S belt. It takes a little muscle to drive with no P/S but isn't too bad.

 

x3 on removing the belt. I have had trucks come into the shop I work for that have thrown belts and it can be ugly sometimes its easy they come in and the belt is just gone. other times it twists up in all the pulleys and breaks stuff. the worst I had to fix was a belt that embedded itself into the radiator after it took out the fan.

 

Yeah, you can just pull off the belt ( it will fit around the fan) and run without it. I had to do that when my old power steering pump failed on me (sent the pulley into the rad!).

You will get a good armworkout, I did!

Go with a toyota belt.