Greetings,

I have recently purchased a 1987 Mazda 323 DX 1.6i. It has a 5 speed manual transmission, leaking taillight seals, and this afternoon I discovered it almost has power steering. The power steering belt is missing and so is the bolt at the engine side of the power steering pump bracket.

Can anyone tell me where I can get one of these, or the specifications so I can get one somewhere else?

My wife has a 1964 Ford Mustang, and we also have a 1995 Jeep, so working on cars is not something new to me...

Thanks in advance,

Z.

 

should be able to get one at autozone or other parts stores. if not a dealer should be able to get you one

 

As you may already know, the bolt will be a metric thread, but you'll probably just have to experiment to find out what size it is. And I wouldn't recommend AutoZone for that piece of hardware. I made that mistake and they charged me $3.50 for a single 10mm bolt!! Go to one of the big boxes. It'll be a lot cheaper for you.
The Zone, or any other decent parts store will have the belt size catalogued.

Having said that: An '87, huh? That car is so lightweight why would you even need power steering?? I wouldn't waste the time or hp/gas mileagefor it if I were you. Besides, it was disconnected for some reason. Probably a leak in the rack or a bad pump.

Instead, anice convert might be to find a good used rack @ the junk yard and convert it to full time manual steering. Or just leave it as it is if the feel is not too heavy. That's what I'd do!

 

I'm going to replace the bolt (so that the power steering pump is held firmly in place) but I'll probably leave the belt off for now.

A fair number of Mustangs out there have the power steering removed but keep the power steering box as it has a faster turn (it takes a bit more muscle power to turn it, but it is doable.

At some point I'll go through the power steering to make sure it has no leaks (and fix any I find) but then I'll leave the belt off again... It's not going to change the performance characteristics without the belt, but it would be nice to be able to enable it if I ever sell the car.

I don't know why it was disabled, but looking at it, my guess is that the bolt came loose/was removed and was lost. Without the bolt the belt wouldn't stay tight so it wasn't replaced. If it was disabled by a professional they would either have just removed the belt, or would have removed a lot more. Removing one bolt from the pump doesn't get you anything and is more likely to cause problems (it's now held on insecurely.

Thanks for the advice, though. I guess it's time to get out the gauges and measure.

Z.

 

If anyone else cares it looks like a 10.9 pitch, 10 mm bolt, 100 mm long fits perfectly. I found the belt too... Apparently it had fallen off because some previous owner hadn't put that bolt back in and it was lying in the bottom of the engine compartment. The Bolt cost $2.65 at the local hardware store.

Z.