Hey all, I come here looking for some insight on a topic I can't seem to find despite all my searches. I just recently came into a project that needed some work, it's a 1982 351w (technically its in an econoline E-350, but I figured this thread would get way more traffic in this forum and the drivetrain is common so who cares what chassis it's in). one item needing attention being the power steering pump.

I took the power steering asy off to inspect it (btw it's a Saginaw pump) as it was leaking pretty bad when I bought it. I pulled the housing off and when I detached the lines from the rack and pinion I ignorantly didn't pay attention to which hard line went where... the leak turned out to be a bad o-ring (I believe) on the pressure line. That, and the fact that the same line with the bad o-ring was only finger tight in the threads. So I took it apart to clean up the threads, and the line to inspect for leaks, cracks and general wear. Replaced the o-ring with one from the autoparts store that seemed like an appropriate fit, with a little P/S fluid to lube it up it went in quite snug. Flirting with an uncomfortable amount of resistance when threading in the line after the o-ring tip was pressed in. But I safely snugged it up, and put fluid in the housing to see if it would leak at all just sitting on my bench over night (I'll check to see what happened after work today).

my real question is, does anyone have a picture or diagram of which line (feed and return) goes where on the rack? I don't want to foolishly just reattach both lines to it and screw my whole assembly up...

Sorry for the novel, I suck at summarizing and love story telling...

thanks for the help

 

See if this from the master parts catalog helps:

 

3A713 = P/S Return Hose // 3A719 = P/S Pressure Hose.
There's no such thing as rack and pinion steering on these vans.

 

Perhaps you can help educate me then, I'm very new to all this so my jargon will likely be inaccurate for some time. What's the proper terminology?

Also thank you so much for the parts diagram! very helpful!

 

Also slightly confusing, of course the only part of the drawing that matters to me is slightly hard to make sense of. I'm assuming the pressure hose goes to the lower of the two threaded holes. I'll compare it to what I'm looking at under the hood tonight

 

I don't know, but have blown the diagram up so you may be able to determine what goes where.

 

good thing it isn't a rack system as the hose positions can change depending on which rack and which pump combo was installed.

 

If you notice, #3A17 in the blown up part of the diagram has a hose clamp. So that means 3A17 is the return line, the pressure line would not have a clamp on it. It's crimped. So 3A719 is the high pressure hose.

 

I think the official term is sector box, but most of us would call it a steering box. (This is the recirculating ball type)


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Rack and pinion steering has a toothed shaft (rack) that a pinion (gear) turns against, forcing it from side to side.

 

Thank you for spelling that out for me! I'm a visual learner so I'll much better understand what I'm working with here going forward now, I appreciate everyones input.

 

How Stuff Works is a great page for simple visual explanations.

If you're wondering 'What does this do?' or 'How does it do that?' You can usually find an answer there.