Lost power steering

[Peter Elias]

As I turned into my driveway yesterday afternoon, I lost power steering.  Luckily I didn’t hit anything as I certainly wasn’t expecting the loss of PS and the resulting extra force required to turn the wheel!

The patient:  1990 Audi 100.   
Mileage:   oh, around 345,000

The PS belt is still there, the pump is turning (and no strange noises either) and there is no loss of fluid.

So I’m a bit baffled.  The current PS pump is a rebuild unit (since Audi apparently no longer carries this as a stock item) that I got from Rock Auto two or so years ago.  Even at Rock Auto, I had to go through 3 different units from them (from 2 different re-manufacturers) until we found one that didn’t leak worse than the one we were replacing... (I mean, what’s the point of “rebuilding” when it leaks? ...sheesh...each time I had to pay the shop to install it...).     Looking at RockAuto right now, I see that  there is currently a rebuilt ACDelco unit available...

I see that the boot / bellows around the steering rack is torn a bit one side, but it’s all dry there.  Could it be some seal/gasket inside the PS pump that is the problem?   

Unfortunately I have neither the tools (nor a rack) to do this kind of work myself... and hopefully I can limp (around 10 mile drive) to the only place around here that I trust to work on this car ... but even their local distributors couldn’t find me a PS pump the last time and had me source it thru RockAuto....   I see seal kits, but no ready-to-bolt on pumps...

Sigh...

Peter