Help me I'm stupid and my stainless line ate my power steering pump
 

Yah, the title says it all. I'm a sloppy shitty installer and apparently my braided stainless water line sawed through the little metal pipe the comes out of the power steering pump and goes to the reservoir. The hole is about as wide as a BB pellet. The tube is part of the pump so it looks like I cant just replace the tube.

Is there any type of tape I can use to fix my poor pump? Should I take off the pump (not sure how to do that even) and jbweld the hole? Arrgh me dum:facepalm:

yup, scotch tape will fix it right up. there is no pressure in there. just air. you could probably use twine. just wrap it tightly around the pipe and then melt candle wax on it. make sure you get a candle that is marked high temp though. lemon scented work the best.

Sounds like the perfect time to dump your power steering! or.... just jam a piece of wood in the hole, sand it out flat, and paint. Maybe use some of that fancy "hammered" spray paint for a custom look.

Power Steering delete FTW!

Lose that useless shit. Another vote for delete. P/S on a Miata is useless unless you are a 11 year old girl.

Yeah a pussy 11 year old girl.

I actually like some things about the steering more this way-- I can feel the car better, there's no wheelwibblewobble when the car tramlines or hits little bumps as i go around turns etc. But it makes drifting difficult and every time I drive my car I have to make a U-turn out of my garage which sucks at 5mph :p So the vote is for JBweld? I'll take a pic :p

If you like it now, it'll feel much better when you take the pump out of the equation and loop the lines/remove the seal.

So, why not just depower? You already like the feeling, and it'll feel even better once the other stuff's out.

Everytime I go back into a P/S car I wonder what happened to the road and why it feels like I'm flying. If you want to feel the road, loose the P/S

All the people with power steering should be banned.. seriously it sucks take it out.
loop the lines and call it good

If the 5mph u turn sucks, just think of it as a chance to build some muscle. Seriously though, even a dead stop turn on the stickiest of surfaces is barely any work at all. P/S is equal in feel to lacing your shoes wearing oven mits.

Take out the little pipe and pay a welder beer money to patch it up with an acetylene torch.

To avoid future problems slit some rubber hose (heater hose or vacuum, depending on diameter) and put it over your SS stuff and zip tie it on.

Frank

+1 When I was making my -6AN lines I got some 5/8" hose from Advance and slid them onto the braided lines before I put the end fittings on. Nice to not have to worry about such things.

Oh yeah, and delete the PS.

Listen to all the above.


Put heater hose over the SS line anywhere it gets near anything. This means downpipes and brake lines (oil feed line) PS lines (oil drain line).

Dump the power steering, you will NEVER look back. Parallel parking is the only thing that sucks, but not that bad. Feel is great at speed, perfect on the highway, and much more feedback at lower speeds. Controlling oversteer (or buttsexing) isn't a problem either.

I removed the PS a few weeks ago. I do NOT miss it. Rip that crap out.

Just to take this off topic a little more, I have never had PS but is the PS rack "faster" Less turns lock to lock?

it has a shorter ratio yes (don't know the exact numbers) a depowered PS rack is quicker than a non PS rack anyway

+100000000000000000000000000000. It looks ugly, but I have pieces of heater hose, radiator hose, etc. all over the place under my hood to protect lines from abrasion, or, for the SS lines, from the lines abrading something else.

If you do not know, just get a piece of hose that has about the same i.d. as the o.d of the line. Cut to length plus a little extra, split it along its length, put it around the line, zip tie it in place. Viola.

If it is a high-side line, I would replace it. If it is a low-side line you can probably patch it with some JB weld, though I would keep a close eye on it. That or just get rid of the PS.

I usually cover any SS line with heat shrink,if I don't want it to rub through anything.