New Power Steering?

So for a while now my power steering has been whining, but starts after about 5 min of driving. If I give it a little gas it'll go away. Do I need a new pump or is there something else wrong?

 

bump

 

have you checked the fluid yet?

 

Yup all full

 

Might check to see if the screen in the reservoir is a lil plugged up with some nastiness?

 

Where is that?

 

The reservoir? Its the canister that holds the fluid. In the bottom there is a screen for filtering debris from entering the steering rack. Its fairly common for them at the age they are these days to become a little plugged up. Then the pump starts straining trying to get more fliud, thus making that whining noise. It could be it or it might not but worth a check. Beings that the noise goes away when u give it a little gas i feel like it could be the problem cause with higher rpms youre making the pump work harder and allowing enough fluid to get by the screen eliminating the noise youre experiencing. But again might be something totally different, idk, dont kold it to me, lol.

 

Ok, have you done that before? What I'm getting at is do you know how to access it?

 

get a , stick it in the hole where the reservoir cap goes down til it bottoms out (don't force it or you'll break the screen), and suck up whatever debris you can that would be at the bottom at the screen.

this guy removes the power steering pump to do it, which is preferable. but you can do it while it's still on. just need to use that turkey baster i mentioned to suck out whatever is sitting on that screen. use new atf dexron 3 to refill it.

 

the issue with this guys method is that when you turn the reservoir upside down and shake it, the shrapnel just gets stuck under the lid and falls back onto the screen later. someone else on tacomaworld actually took off that lid and cleaned it better. still have to take the whole thing out though.

 

Thanks this was a big help!