TacocaT

%75 of the time my truck is a street truck, but when I go out to my dad's land I like to take for a spin down dirt roads, trails, etc. The other day I was doing donuts in a flat, mowed down field on my dad's land. Coming out of the donut I took my hands off the steering wheel to let the front wheels straighten themselves out. Well I guess I hadn't quite gained traction back or something because instead of straightening out the steering wheel turned all the way to lock in one direction. I grabbed the wheel again to straighten it out myself, but at this point it was very hard to turn. I turned off the ignition and looked under the hood and the serpentine belt had somehow came off and there was power steering fluid splattered around where the P/S reservoir is. Does anyone have any insight as to possible causes of these problems? The P/S pump and hoses all look fine. After replacing the belt and tensioner assembly everything seems to be running just fine. Just really confused as to what could've caused this and I suspect there may be an underlying P/S related cause, I just don't know what it is. Someone please enlighten me.

Thanks,

TacocaT

techrep

iTrader: (1)

Probably when you slammed your rack and pinion to one side doing donuts...never take your hands off the wheel... where did you go to school at ??

Rick's 06

They almost seem like two unrelated things. Doing donuts shouldn't make your belt fall off, or make fluid come out of your PS reservoir. Maybe your belt and tensioner were at the end of your life and blipping the throttle was enough to bounce the tensioner out of phase and allowed slack in the belt and it came off. And maybe just moving the steering wheel to one side that quickly overcame some seals and some fluid came out.

TacocaT

Texas A&M University. I'll be graduating in December. And yes in hindsight letting go of the wheel was not the best idea. Hopefully the old tensioner was just worn out and contributed to the belt falling off and the power steering just had a momentary freak out. Thanks for the input guys that's kinda what I was thinking/hoping.

bwFX42006

Check the main shaft seal on the rack and pinion.

Daz73

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