I was going to adjust my power steering pump belt on my 325i yesterday. It was squeaking whenever I'd tax it hard, such as fast cranking at a standstill.
It was real loose and I had very little room left to tighten it. I took it off to take it in to check it against the next smallest size to see if that might be the way to go, and to try to tell if it had just stretched.
I didn't want to drive my low mpg truck to the auto parts store (my 300SD is down for a while
) so I just tightened the pump pivot bolt back up and drove the beemer.
I don't know if I'm imagining it but I could swear I notice a nice little bit of extra punch and zip. Wishful thinking on my part perhaps?
The extra steering effort is not too bad except at a stop and it's not excessively bad then. Maybe it'll save me some trips to the gym. However, I'm a bit worried that the whole linkage might not do well with the extra stress put on it over time, as normally most of the work is done in the steering gear box with pressurized oil.
Of course it's set up to work in case of emergency loss of power assist but I'm not sure about the long run.
There's an after-market manual steering gear that weighs 20 lbs less than the power unit and I understand it's quite a bit easier to crank than a depowered power unit. Costs around $500 though -- who knows, maybe I'll do it someday.
Right after I find and install an E-30 M3 engine, 2.3 or 2.5 liter 4 cylinder with more punch than my 6 and less weight. That shouldn't cost me more than $4 or $5 grand.
