sudden loss of steering, 97 T+C

was in town today with the wife+kids, noticed the compaas was playing
up. Stopped the car in the walmart parking lot, well away from anyone
else, put the compas in calibration mode, and started my loops. just
as I was finishing my seond one, th stearing tried to wrench itself
out of my hands to go straight ahead.

stopped, and pulled into a space, and jacked the acr up. power
steering seems to be gone, but the fluid level appears fine. I see no
leaks on the road (a baking 93F out there today) . About the only
thing I could see or feel out of normal was something similar to
Teflon tape, black, hanging down from what feels like some sort of
cable loom, a little underneith the drivers side inside CV joint. I
couldn't see any leaks, or hear any.

For the sake of completeness, its a 97 town+country lxi, with most of
the extras, 3.9, and I was doing a fairly tight left loop.

Anyone has any thoughts on whats wrong, would be much appreciated.
Hate for the wife to lose more than a days work because of it.

 

Take a look at the V-belt hows driving the power steering.

Regards,

Ralf

 

Its driving it just fine. Used a piece of chalk to mark the pully,
then had the daughter fire it up - no binding there.

 

oops, forgot to say thanks, sorry
Thanks for responding.

 

Ok, followup - got it up on jacks, pully covers on the underside
removed.

on the frame LW |=|===|=| RW (lovely ascii art)

there appears to be some sort of pump, or something bolted straight to
the second crossbar from the left under the cylinder, one of the hoses
on the left hand side made a sucking noise when I touched it, Its thi
area that the teflon-tape like material came from.

 

OK, the pump element self it's very rare faulty, it could be a faulty valve
or spring etc. O-ring or gasket.
The only way is to reassembly the pump, clean it up, replace O-rings and
gaskets and check springs.
A manual with drawings and descriptions would be an essential help.

Maybe with you maneuver at walmart parking lot produce an opening of valve
and now for some reasons it couldn't close.

Regards,

Ralf

 

was it wet out??? is the wiper module drain inplace and water spilling
onto the belt???