Hey all,
I was driving yesterday and I hit a bump upon coming down a steep hill, this caused me to lose power steering. I continued to drive and found that the battery light came on a few seconds later. I knew this only meant one thing, my belt had snapped. I pulled over to find that this was not only the case, but my power steering pump had dismounted!! From what I could see, it appeared that the mounting bolts snapped off inside the block. This is on a freshly rebuilt L36. From what I saw there were two bolts, but I could be wrong. It was dark out and all that I had was my cell phone LED light to help me see. Does anybody know if this is a common failure? My uncle probably used the stock bolts to put the pump back on, and the force from using them twice probably made them shear from being fatigued. In engineering they call this the yield point of the material. Oh man, I want my 1988 Pontiac 6000 A-body back! Nothing but problems, nothing but problems.....

There are 2 bolts that hold the pump to the block. I reused the factory bolts on my pump and have not had any problem with the pump or the bolts. And I had it off and on a couple of times. You may want to try an ez-out or welding a nut tothe remaining part of the bolt. I doubt you will be able to get a drill in there. Good luck.

PS pump bolts are not torque-to-yield, and are reusable an infinite number of times. If they broke, they were grossly over-torqued.

You will need to remove the pump, center-punch the broken remnants, drill, and use an easy-out.

I thought the PS pump was bolted to the accessory bracket, not the block? If so, you could remove the bracket and it would make the bolt removal easier. Eh, maybe the L36 is different in this respect than my L67.

The L36 has the PS pump bolted to the block. The L67 must be different

Will, I guess they were over torqued when my uncle put this motor together. I took him with me to look at it where it was abandoned, and he basically confirmed what I said. The bolts were snapped flush with the block. He said he might be able to use an easy out, but the problem is going to be getting any kind of drill in that space. He said he will probably need to take out one of the engine mounts and jack the engine up to get to it. I suppose that if he were to try and use an easy out, the bolts would be easier to remove since they are not torqued down by the leverage of the unit being attached. They should just be resting in there, free to turn provided that the bolts weren't shoved in there and aren't fitting properly. Ah, he'* fixin it, just thought you guys would find this interesting. On a side note, shouldn't the power steering pump assembly have more than two bolts holding it up being that it see'* a lot of force from the belt being tight, and the unit weighing at least 10 lbs? I feel that this was poor engineering from GM, or it could have been my ucnle . Sorry for the long post.

I'm in Philly also. If you need any help just let me know.

You'll almost certainly need a right-angle drill in there. You can't jack the motor up with the torque-axis mount out enough to directly access those bolts.

Let us know how it goes.

To the administration, thank you for your help. I will have to see how my uncle pulls this off. I also know that the shaft on the water pump pulley is bent, causing the pulley to wobble when the engine is running. This should probably be switched out now because the PS pump is off. The water pump was supposed to be new, but oh well. Thanks for your help.

To 95naSTA: I also thank you for your help. I think my uncle can fix it, but you will probably understand my pain when I tell you that I have to cruise my Z28 down chestnut st in west philly in the rain to get to Drexel for class. That is painful right there.