BIL has a 91 Lumina that has a P/S problem.
The fluid is "boiling" out of the pump resovoir.
Anyone have any ideas?
He says the Mechanic down the street is quoting $700 to fix.
BIL doesn't know what they're supposed to do fix it for that $700. :

Did I mention that he is totally mechanically illiterate?

 

It almost sounds to me like the check valve inside the ps pump that controls the pressure on hard turns is malfunctioning and not allowing the fluid to bypass. Just my opinion though. ???

 

That's exactly the kind of responses I'm hoping for.
Thanks.
Keep 'em coming.

 

Can you get more info from the tech. Kinda hard to diag it this far away. Does the steering work properly other than belching fluid??

 

He says it works until the fluid "Boils" (his words) out of the resivoir.
Then the steering gets hard.

Yeah I know it's like trying to diagnose a "pain" over the phone.
The ONLY time he ever calls is to tell me one of his cars is "broken" again.

 

It may sound obvious, but if water has become trapped in the system, this could be causing the boiling. Refilling and bleeding the system may be worth trying before dropping $700 bucks. Another thing to check is to make sure none of the PS cooling lines are kinked. The valve mentioned above also sounds like a good possibility. However, if the Lumina is a 3.1 V6, the PS pump is only about $50 at Advance Auto Parts. I changed one a few years on the Ex's Corsica 3.1