[Guest]

First, three facts. My Impala hates me, Murphy lives with me, and AGR can't seem to ship me anything that freaking works despite their premium price.

Now on to the details. Long but please hang with me because I really need help.

I replaced my power steering pump (third time) with an AGR pump 13 months ago because the car would intermittanly be very hard to turn at an idle. The AGR helped some, but the problem still happened occasionally. Figured it was time to replace the 150K mile steering box but had to save up for that one. Replaced the box with an AGR unit about a month ago. Didn't help the problem. We've also noticed since installing the new AGR Steering Box that the steering pressure isn't consistant. When you turn the wheel you can feel the pressure change while you turn it and it is consistantly harder to turn left than right. I've also replaced the belt, replaced the tensioner, installed an Meziere water pump, checked to be sure the pully on the pump wasn't slipping and that the crank wasn't slipping.

Called AGR, the tech guy there said he had NO idea what could be going on, but agreed to replace the AGR pump with another one for a "reduced" price. We were assuming the brand new AGR Box was good so the problem had to be the ,barely year old, pump.

Installed the new pump today. As usual I went through the complete purge/bleed ritual (put the car on stands, turn the weel back and forth fifty gazillion times, etc. etc.) and am only using Royal Purple PS fluid per AGR's Recommendation. Now NONE of the old symptoms have gone away, but we added a new one! This pump groans anytime you turn the wheel at an idle. I bled the system again and no bubbles showed-up. Checked all fitting. Replace the o-ring on every fitting that was opened on the pump and box replacements. No sign of leakage. The fluid doesn't rise when I turn the motor off. The ONLY thing in the system I haven't replaced are the lines. I've inspected those and see nothing wrong, crimped, etc. and no sign of air in the system. I checked for pully slipage again. I replaced the belt again and it didn't help.

Unless anyone has any insight on this, the only conclusion I can come up with is that everyting AGR has sent me to date was defective out of the box. Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated because AGR is EXTREMELY slow shipping things. This second pump they had sitting on the shelf and it took another phone call and a week just to get it out the door to me. My daughter would like to have her car back and right now I'm afraid to let her drive it until I sort this out.

I need suggestions please!!!

 

[Guest]

I would say defective pump. Try a stock OEM pump. I know its a pita to change it but I dont know what elese to think of. Oh and by the way couldnt resist its cool you let your daughter drive a chevy I guess you know what real reliable cars are.

 

[Guest]

Wonder if AGR may be failing to recongnize the B-body pump is "reverse rotation"?

Suggest you call Lee Manufacturing to get this done right...818-768-0371. They're used to fixing AGR's screw-ups.

 

[Guest]

DMan, I'm now VERY good at changing the pump. LOL I must also say, she drives this car because she and my wife love it!! and it's a big safe car. If reliability were a factor, it would have been gone LONG ago. I'm only suffering through this for her. That I can assure you.
Lifer, this is a reverse rotation pump. Great question though! I'm calling Lee today to talk to them.

 

[Guest]

Talked to AGR this morning. They seemed to at least have the correct attitude. They are concerned and want to get this resolved for me. They believe there is nothing wrong with the pump I installed yesterday, but the problem is in the month-old AGR Gear Box. They are building me a new box from scratch and shipping it this week at no charge with a call tag to return the old one. All I have to do is change it AGAIN! Crap.

I'm not sure why the old pump wasn't making noise if the problem being caused by the gearbox, but hey, I'm just the end user. My money is on the gearbox and the pump both being bad.

 

[Guest]

OMG, I figured I was the only person who had a problem like this with AGR PS Pumps. My AGR steering box is working very well, but I too have gone through 3 of their PS pumps. The first one worked, but then developed a groaning noise and increased effort to turn only after a month or so. They sent me a new one free of charge 2 weeks after my complaint. The second pump groaned right from the start no matter how well I bled the system. I send the second pump back to be rebuilt and 2 weeks later install it again and guess what? This time I have absolutely no power steering at all.

It turns out they accidentally rebuilt it into a standard rotation pump. I sent it back and got a full refund, went down to Autozone and got a replacement PS pump. This one has been working great now for that past year or so. The bottom line is that the AGR steering boxes are pretty good, but for some reason they can't build a reliable PS pump that will work in a B-Body.

Steve

 

[Guest]

Well so far, my AGR gear box is bad according to AGR themselves, so that shoots that theory in the foot. I've also gone through two Autozone pumps and now two AGR pumps. Someone needs to develop a rack/pinion conversion setup for these cars! I dang sure could have bought one of those for all the money I've thrown at the suspension on this one between the PS stuff and a complete MOOG rebuild of everyting else down there. I can't imagine where I'd be moneywise if I didn't do the labor myself.

 

[Guest]

It will be interesting to hear how that custom build by AGR works out. I have an AGR box that's been in for a few years. It's ok, but very numb at center. I'm thinking about replacing it with either a Tom Lee rebuild or the Detroit Speed box. The Detroit Speed box is supposed to give you "rack and pinion" feel, whatever that means, but it's very pricey (about $700 between the box and the additional parts you need to make it work) plus they've never installed one in a post-'92 Caprice so couldn't say for sure it would work properly, although I don't think there's any difference, dimensionally, between the pre-'92 and post-'92 boxes. Sometime in the next few days I'm probably going to call them and see if I can get some insight into whether the actual steering mechanism is different.