My dad's CJ7 runs really rough when he takes a sharp turn at low RPM's. It's the worst when you just try to turn sitting at idle. I've heard of other Jeeps cutting off completely and back when I had power steering I had the same problem. What is causing this?

J. J.

Steering binding maybe? How diffcult is it to turn the wheel with the engine off?

Uh . . . this is power steering, so pretty difficult. I was thinking that it might have something to do with the PS pump having to do such hard work with so few RPM's to generate PSI, but then I got to wondering how that could affect the engine and I didn't see how. I mean, I don't see how the PS pump bogging down could bog the engine down, ya know? I mean, it's just a rubber belt that links them in any mechanical way. I dont' see how it could affect vacuum or gas, U know?

J. J.

Put the front on jackstands with the jeep running and crank the wheel from side to side. if it doesn't bog down then you know that the PS pump is bogging down the engine when resistance is incurred while turning at a stop. Might be time for a new pump, who knows. If it does it with the wheels in the air then the steering might be binding.

Not sure if the CJ's had this or not but some 4cyl early XJ's had a pressure switch on the pressure line of the PS system. At idle if you turned the wheel and the pressure went up it would trip the switch and bump the idle up a couple hundred rpm. Ford did this too.

What the slut describes is what my 4cyl YJ does when I back out of the driveway. It almost stalls. I even put some washers in my steering stops.

Unless you've switched to an underdrive pulley or something like that, either the pump isn't working correctly or there's something working against the pump (binding). Don't underestimate the amount of horsepower that little belt can suck outta your engine.

Of course, that's assuming you're idle is set about right and the engine idles good... Is the Jeep a 4-banger? Like Recurve was saying, this type of problem is exasperated on a low-torque engine. If you determine that the steering is NOT binding (Jack up the front and turn the wheel lock to lock--if it's binding, you'll know it) you might consider a larger pulley on the pump.

My thought is that it's either binding or your pump is messed up... you might wanna check for a pinched line somewhere too though.

HTH,
Jake