so my tesnsioner pulley siezed the other night when i was about 2 miles from home which in turn broke the pulley off of the bearing and shredded the belt. i drove straight no more than 3 turns without power steering and parked the car. got a ride up to the store and changed the pulley and the belt. so far so good. so later in the day i go to go golfing and i make it within 1/4 mile of the course and i start hearing the power steering whine so i golf and then drive straight to meijer and buy some fluid and put it in on the parking lot. problem solved so far so good. so then i leave work today i get within 1/2 mile of my house and the power steering starts whinning again. so i pull in the driveway and notice two huge puddles of power steering fluid i presume one from the night the belt broke and one from the night after i replaced the fluid.

any ideas why losing the belt would cause my power steering pump to start leaking? i dont really have a problem replacing it i would just like to know why. anybody know how hard and expensive the part is to replace?

thanks for your help as always!

Your return line might have gotten damaged. I'd check it or just go ahead and replace. It connects to the bottom corner of the reservoir anyway.

thanks rook. you were pretty darn close. the belt actually rubbed a whole in the resevoir. from what hear you cant buy the resevoir seperate so it looks like ill be replacing the pump...

If you don't already have them, be sure to buy/rent/borrow the tools to remove & install the ps pump pulley, before you get started.

Also, use an impact wrench on the pulley remove/installer. It turns a swearfest into a less than 3 minute process.

If you're feeling adventurous and the hole is small, you could remove the pump, degrease it and use a plastic epoxy to seal the hole.

yeah after i posted my response i actually ended up doing that. the hole was about 1/8" max by maybe 1/4" tall. im just going by feel cause i couldnt see it very well but i could just barely get a finger nail in it. im letting it set tonight even though it should only take 30 minutes to set and ill check it out in the morning. hopefully it work. i figured if it didnt i would just end up right back were i started needing a new pump so WTH.

thanks for the tips guys.