Hey guys my daughters car started squealing at the ps pump yesterday. I looked in the resevoir and the fluid seem to be a little foamy but had enough fluid in it even though there was some fresh fluid around the top of the resevoir.
Today the noise isn't as bad but the steering is stiffer and when I look into the tank it appears that the fluid isn't moving around at all. I ran an Ice cream stick down into the bottom of the tank and scraped up some pretty thick gunk off of the bottom. The fluid it's self doesn't really look that bad though.
So my question;
Is my pump gone or is there anything that I can put in it to clean it out and then refill it with fluid?

 

If its foamy you at least want to flush it out and refill with new fluid. if its still foamy shortly afterwards and isnt losing any fluid youd need to look into a new powersteering pump.

 

It has actually stopped foaming and appears to be doing nothing.
I'm afraid it may be toast.

 

Clean it out and put some lucas power steering stopleak in it. That stuff is great. Thick as mastic but it gets rid of leaks and hard spots. It won't foam and you can get more time out of that pump. Take the return hose off and see if fluid is coming back.

 

Ok I ran a quart of ATF through it and it's as smooth as a baby's bottom. I think I'll do this again in a couple of weeks.

 

I had a similar problem with Wifey's mercury Sable. It would make a squeel so I put in a thing of synthetic power steering fluid (valvoline with stop leak and anti foam) worked good, changed it out once more, seems to run great now.

On a side note her car at random times (like 1 time per drive) will emit a really loud buzz noise, almost like your dragging a shovel over those rumble strips. I have no clue what that is, happens different time, way, length everything every time. I suspect the time will come when kabam.