My 1990 4x4 250 cummins keeps blowing its power steering pump. I'm wondering if there's anyone who has experienced something like this here.

I don't off-road it. It has been blowing pumps about every 10k miles (or less) of mostly city driving. Could this be normal from the heavy use (parallel parking, cornering)? I'm about to hand over another chunk of change for the fourth pump in as many years!

Always seems to happen during cold weather. Truck hates the cold.

 

it is definitely not normal for a power steering to die every 10k miles. have you made sure to keep the reservoir full. have you been using actually power steering fluid?

 

Alright, I need to update us:
Checking back in my records, I actually only blew two pumps, but also have had trouble with failure of the steering box. It's leaking now, again! The fluid wasn't low, but was quite foamy. It appeared to be the wrong kind of fluid. After purging out that bad fluid and filling with proper steering fluid, it is more or less running properly now. I fear that there's a problem where the steering shaft goes into the box. There's a slow drip. So, it seems that I have had a reoccurring problem with this gearbox, which has possibly lead to rapid failure of my pump.

 

if there is foam in the reservoir that usually means it is low. if you have a leak you could use 10w30 to try to slow the leak down. i use 5w30 in my power steering pumps because it is what i have sitting around and it seems to work fine.

 

It's low again, but not at all foamy. Wait, so just to clarify, you're saying top it off with motor oil?
How would that help?

Thanks for your attention on this. I was really going nuts because I thought I had some kind of chronic issue with the steering. Was wondering if this would somehow dig up someone who knew about a peculiarity with these trucks.

 

motor oil is thicker so if it is leaking it will leak slower