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Steering pump failures, what’s wrong with my work truck?

JR4X

JR4X

wheeler
race
Joined
May 20, 2020
Member Number
445
Messages
4,079
Loc
Farmington NM
2020 F250 6.2 gasser superduty with 93,000 oilfield miles on it. I just burned up the second power steering pump on it yesterday.

Both times I’ve damaged the pump I’ve been stuck in the mud, having to do full throttle rev limiter assaults to get out. The first time I theorized that maybe I held it to lock and was demanding to much of the pump for to long.

But I am absolutely 100% for certain that I did NOT hold it hard lock while on the rev limiter. I consciously made sure I didn’t do that to it. What I did find is that if the wheels are steered at all and I have to rev the shit out of it the pump screams like it’s bypassing. By the time I was un stuck (from the middle of the road) the pump is weak, whines when I steer the wheel at idle and the fluid is black as paint now.

I think the steering box isn’t working right, and not bypassing fluid like it’s supposed to be when not being asked to steer the wheels. It should probably require a little pressure to hold the wheels at a constant 10° off center while I bounce it off the rev limiter. But it shouldn’t require the full pressure of the pump to hold the wheels turned once turned. And again I’m positive I didn’t hold the wheels hard lock and floor it. This is the first truck I’ve ever had steering issues with so I think something is wrong with it like steering box. Any takers on this issue?
 
How many miles between pump replacement ?

Are you buying the cheap APS rebuilt pumps or good new pumps from the ford dealer ?

How about stop getting stuck in the mud, ask for help from a coworker if there are any around, if there are leave or get to work etc around the same time and have a huge rope or snatch strap.
 
PAE said:
How many miles between pump replacement ?

How about stop getting stuck in the mud, ask for help from a coworker if there are any around, if there are leave or get to work etc around the same time and have a huge rope or snatch strap.
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With all due respect and I appreciate the reply, that’s not how this works. My job is to drive around oilfield roads all throughout the day. This is not an arrive at a destination, spend all day in one place, drive home at the end of the day job. I have 20+ stops and about 10 to 30 minutes per stop, in the middle of nowhere, by myself all day. And there are 30 men in our group doing the exact same thing I’m doing in an area of their own. This is not optional, going to locations every day no matter the conditions is the job.

Edit. Tomorrow there will be 4 inches of snow on top of the 12” deep of mud meaning basically a constant water refill to maintain the consistency of the mud till next week if it doesn’t snow or rain between now and then.
 
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This is the only stuck I’ve ever been in, in this truck yet that required me getting towed out to be freed. I backed into semi truck ruts and it was 25° so the ground was frozen. Held my tires just perfect and I couldn’t go forward or backwards.
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rattle_snake said:
Suggest largest Thornbirds that will fit so you can't get stuck.

Black fluid. hum. The pump should have it's own bypass. Maybe PS cooler is damaged?
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That is also a thought. That the first pump failure plugged the ps cooler. I had a shop replace the pump and flush the system but the cooler and reservoir were not replaced.
 
PAE said:
Ok, have fun
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I will admit that this pump probably wouldn’t have gotten destroyed if I had my tire chains on in the first place. But we all try to get away with out putting iron on because doing that every day SUCKS! That said even with tire chains on I still have to do rev limiter runs to get up hills or make corners sometimes. The pump bypass squalls the whole time it’s revved to the moon and the truck is moving maybe 1 to 5 mph.
 
Better cooler, reservoir and filters, more capacity so you dont kill the next one ehh.
 
Also I've found that in wheeling a dually 4wd truck gets stuck less , more tire surface area than a srw truck.

Get or convert to DRW.
 
I've been killing pumps on my buggy after high RPM use.
Always baffled me me since they are stock pumps with stock pulleys.

If you do the math, you realize the pulley ratio is way overdriven. Probably because work trucks don't / aren't engineered to spend their lives at high RPM and they'd rather get the higher flow at low RPM.

I'm sure it explains my failures.

No idea if that's your problem but might be worth 2mn with a tape measure.
 
Check the cooler and lines, and rebuild or replace the box. I bet something is restricting the return fluid at high revs and the pump is running dry. Or maybe cavitating.
 
Mud grapplers brah! Can't comment on your issues... but as a ford owner myself I'll say it. What?! A ford with loud PS pump that likes to shit the bed... no fokin way!
 
CarterKraft said:
Any reason to not have replaced the cooler after plugged?
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Because if I don’t do the work the fleet management people get the phone call to approve or disapprove work. Truck was just past warranty so I think they skimped on it. I have more say in it this time.
 
14 years off, E450 2006, but I fried the pump on a downhill run in first humming along near the 5k redline. Factory pump 71k miles.
 
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PAE said:
Also I've found that in wheeling a dually 4wd truck gets stuck less , more tire surface area than a srw truck.

Get or convert to DRW.
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Dude, duallys are terrible in sticky mud. It gets stuck between the duals and turns them both into a glazed donut.

When we ran the 500 hp John deers, the big single tire ones would run circles around the duals. Pickups is no different.
 
I had better luck than you describe.
 
PAE said:
I had better luck than you describe.
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It can go both ways. The dually 350/450/550 work trucks we have at work weigh so much that even chained up can’t go where the single wheels can go.

However, Best thing I’ve ever driven in mud though was an F700 2 ton MDT 4x4 DRW. That thing was unstoppable with chains on it. I used to get called out to go tow stuck things out with it. 20k# winch on board and I never even felt like I was anywhere near stuck in it while rescuing 15K+ pound trucks buried to the doors in mud.
 
JR4X said:
It can go both ways. The dually 350/450/550 work trucks we have at work weigh so much that even chained up can’t go where the single wheels can go.

However, Best thing I’ve ever driven in mud though was an F700 2 ton MDT 4x4 DRW. That thing was unstoppable with chains on it. I used to get called out to go tow stuck things out with it. 20k# winch on board and I never even felt like I was anywhere near stuck in it while rescuing 15K+ pound trucks buried to the doors in mud.
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Fuck, you get paid to do this shit? :laughing:
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Fuck, you get paid to do this shit? :laughing:
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I get paid to mud bog snow wheel and wear out trucks for somebody else. Some days it’s fun, but as I get older it’s definitely getting to be more of a nuisance than the fun it used to be. I made $700 bucks on Christmas Day pulling a 550 out of the mud. But I’d have gladly paid the $700 bucks to stay at home with the fam.
 
JR4X said:
I get paid to mud bog snow wheel and wear out trucks for somebody else. Some days it’s fun, but as I get older it’s definitely getting to be more of a nuisance than the fun it used to be. I made $700 bucks on Christmas Day pulling a 550 out of the mud. But I’d have gladly paid the $700 bucks to stay at home with the fam.
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I hear you, no different than operating equipment. People think it'd just as fun as Tonka toys in the sand box, and every now and then it is, but lots of bullshit in between.

I get pretty irritated when I'm asked to work holidays. I would have gave them the finger for xmas, but I've also gotten laid off many times :laughing:
 
YotaAtieToo said:
I hear you, no different than operating equipment. People think it'd just as fun as Tonka toys in the sand box, and every now and then it is, but lots of bullshit in between.

I get pretty irritated when I'm asked to work holidays. I would have gave them the finger for xmas, but I've also gotten laid off many times :laughing:
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In my current job I’m on call once every 6 weeks no matter how it lands. This was the first Christmas I’ve had to work in a few years.
 
Sounds like you're getting the fluid to hot, once it boils it becomes aerated and then it destroys the pump.
The fluid starts to burn when it gets near 300*, once it's north of that the end is near, same thing for an automatic trans. Probably adding a cooler/ better cooler will help your problem.
 
I agree with PAE, just stop driving in the mud :flipoff2:

Any chance you have some connections in the offroad racing world with a company like PSC who make aftermarket steering components that would maybe have a more educated guess?
 
Well it’s been about 4 weeks since getting it fixed. Had to fight with fleet management to get an “exception” to take it where I wanted to have it repaired better. If it were up to fleet it would have gotten a cheap parts store pump and that’s it.

I had a shop put a Ford pump hoses and cooler on and flush the shit out of it while they were doing it. There must have been a restriction somewhere because the steering is a ton better now than it was the whole time with the last pump. I wanted to blame the steering box but that obviously wasn’t the problem. Guessing a blocked high pressure hose because the noise I was used to hearing sounded like a stalling bypassing pump not cavitation like when the pump is starving. Now I can hit the rev limiter and not hear any steering pump noise. This winter was rough on trucks out here.
 
HillbillyDeluxe said:
Any chance you have some connections in the offroad racing world with a company like PSC who make aftermarket steering components that would maybe have a more educated guess?
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Do you know me? I’m not recognizing you by user name if we know each other. That question is either hilarious if you know me. Or ironic if you don’t.

In any case, PSC doesn’t particularly care for me. I buy a lot of parts from them but I no longer ask for their advice and wouldn’t take it if they offered it, we have a sorted past.
 
Which sucks because you had hands in one of a few innovations when it comes to steering systems in this sport. I really enjoyed your thread about it.
 
JR4X said:
It can go both ways. The dually 350/450/550 work trucks we have at work weigh so much that even chained up can’t go where the single wheels can go.

However, Best thing I’ve ever driven in mud though was an F700 2 ton MDT 4x4 DRW. That thing was unstoppable with chains on it. I used to get called out to go tow stuck things out with it. 20k# winch on board and I never even felt like I was anywhere near stuck in it while rescuing 15K+ pound trucks buried to the doors in mud.
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My service truck gets stuck on wet grass.
Usually just have to make sure the thing I am going to fix will be running good enough to pull me out.
 
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