Rebuilt pump w/variable assist

Anyone know where to find the complete pump with the variable assist valve, or just the variable assist valve for a decent price?

I don't see that this pump is available at my local parts vendors. Napa is a maybe, but need to call.

I find them on ebay, but nearly $200.

I replaced my pump with a reman, but just swapped the valve.
It leaked right away. I think it was two issues:

1. I replaced the hose with a new one, but the angle at the end of the hose was off. I had to bend it to get close.
2. I had to rotate the valve a little to get it to line up. The little flare outs on the solenoid hit the pump hosing, not allowing a complete seal.

I ground down the flare to give it room. Still leaked.
After tons of searching, found an o-ring kit, but it wasn't 100 percent right. Some O-rings in the factory valve were d-ring. Found another kit with some d-rings and got it put back together. Didn't leak for a good month.

Now, I have a leak again. I would like to just replace the whole thing and see if that does it. I would much rather find just the valve and put in place, but I cant find it anywhere. any ideas?

Napa is out also. No vendor they can find still sells the assembly

Fred was able to pull one for me from a junkyard Fleetwood near him, but I discovered it too has issues, though not as severe as my original (I broke the electrical socket off completely)

However I was able to specially order a Delco reman from Summit that should be here in about a month, and I can use the one Fred got for me as the core since they don't want mine back with the busted off connector.

Many of the ones I see online say they have the valve, and they actually don't. Ask me how I found that out...

If you can wait, maybe the Summit option is good for you. Also you can order a "reman my unit" option from Rock Auto where you send your pump in for rebuilding.

how did you find the summit unit? How much was it? I can find units at the junkyards near me, but for all the work it takes, not sure I'd want to try a junkyard unit that may or may not be better than what I have. Crazy thing is, right now its not leaking. Its got fluid in it, but since its warmed up, no leaks.

The part I ordered was this:

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/ADO-36P0275

which shows as currently unavailable. I may have gotten the only one... but they may be able to get more, so may not be a bad idea to ping them.

With core charge it was $143

I got a note from Summit saying basically they can't get the pump. I'm going to go with the Rock Auto "send in your rebuild" option and see how that goes.

Ok, I finally got the pump back from Cardone. I don't know if it's the same one or not, but the cracked variable assist solenoid connector was replaced. With the liberal application of rebuilding spray, it's hard to tell what was done. But, I've got a pump to replace now, I suppose! So, in summary, the Rock Auto "send us your pump and we'll rebuild it" option does work.

I'll wait till you have it a few weeks and report it doesn't leak

Ok, I finally had some time to work on this. In the box I found some of the broken parts on the pump I sent in, so they definitely sent me back the same pump.

I hit a snag and couldn't get the old pump out without wrecking the reservoir hose, so I'm on hold until I get a new hose. On the plus side, I have a core sitting here. So 71novaguy, if you want the core you can have it for the cost of shipping it.

A core with the solenoid?

Yes. The solenoid is broken but present, and they didn't seem to care about that on the last one I sent in. They replaced the solenoid on mine.

I got the pump installed today. Did the air purge procedure and changed as much of the fluid as I could get out. It works great, no leaks, but it's really noisy. I'm not sure if that's due to new bearings or something similar, but other than the noise everything seems good.

Is it cold where you are? What kind of oil did you use?

It's not cold. I am using the Lucas power steering fluid.

I looked at the service manual and interestingly it says to replace the fluid if the pump is noisy. Maybe it doesn't like the Lucas fluid?

Well that went well... not.

Tried the fluid purge procedure. Return hose in a jug, reservoir return fitting capped, wife in car ready to stop/start motor and turn the wheel lock-to-lock.

Hit lock and the pressure seems to skyrocket, blasted the hose out of the jug and sprayed fluid everywhere. And I couldn't get fluid into the system faster than it was pumping out, and it eventually ran dry. Wow it makes a lot of noise when that happens.

Anyway, cleaned up, put everything back to normal and started over. Pump is still the noisiest thing on the front of the motor but not any louder than it was before, so I don't think anything got destroyed. Fluid is nice and clean now. Much better than the black crud with gold flakes that was in it before.

Still getting tiny bubbles when I go lock to lock.

and to continue the trend of talking to myself...

Cardone says the noise is due to air in the system.

Don't worry lamune, we're listening. Did you turn the wheel lock to lock with the engine off, wheels off the ground before you started the engine? It takes a bit of time, but that's how I do it.

200OZ: Short answer, yes.

After I ran the system dry and coated the engine compartment and garage with fluid, I did exactly that. Put everything back together, jacked the front end up so the wheels were off the ground and turned the wheel back and forth until no bubbles could be seen in the reservoir anymore. Then I started the motor and did the same thing. No bubbles anymore. It is quieter now, though I suppose the PS pumps in these cars are just kind of noisy.

Although technically I was effective at getting the old fluid out using the method in the FSM, it didn't exactly work as expected. If anyone is thinking about a fluid swap, I think it would be far safer to run the engine and turn the wheel back and forth a bunch of times, stop the motor, suck out whatever's in the sump, replace it with clean fluid, restart the motor and repeat until the fluid is clear. It seems a lot safer if you don't have another method to replace the fluid.

I wonder how long it takes for the pump to self-destruct if you ruptured a line and dumped all the fluid out. If the sound I heard is any indication, I'd say "not long"!

I have a general question for y'all. How desirable is the variable assist power steering? How does it feel compared with the regular power steering?

Well, I can say it felt "weird" to me when the variable assist feature was broken. Now it feels "normal". Yeah, not very helpful but that's my impression.