Steering wheel shake really bad?

[Chrisis37]

So the other day I was driving to work at 6 am and it was raining very hard and it was still dark so the visibility was rather bad and I drove through (what I thought was going to be a small puddle at the time) a overflowing creek at 30 mph and immediately after this I lost my power steering, my truck started to overheat and my battery started to die.

I only had about half a mile left to go to work so I went ahead and drove there with no power steering, when I got there my truck was overheating pretty badly and my battery was nearly dead. After it cooled down a bit I opened the hood and immediately noticed that my serpentine belt had fallen off, I'm guessing the creek I drove through had something to do with that as it shook my truck pretty bad when I went through it.. Anyway the belt wasn't broken so I managed to get it back on and it started up fine with the exception of the belt squeaking badly, but as I drove home every time I turned, my steering wheel would shake pretty violently..

Its a well used truck as it has 204k miles on it so I checked the power steering fluid and it looked like a dark brown, do I need to change the power steering fluid and if so how do I go about that? Or is there something else that is wrong? The steering wheel never shook like that before the serpentine belt fell off..

 

[adsm08]

Driving with the pump not running cavitated the fluid. The air pockets are what you are feeling. If you xan get both front wheels off the ground and cycle the steering lock to lock about 25 times with it running that will help.

If you cant just get on a long (10 miles or so) straight stretch of road and just run it. The air will work out in time.

Postin' from teh Galaxy

 

[UrbanRedneckKid]

What he said... But...

On the ground, and hold the engine around 2000 rpm. Should only have to go from lock to lock 5 or 6 times.

Letting the suspension hang, although proper technique w/ a regular box, is known to pull air in the rack& pinion end seals. Common thing when put on a lift, or jacked up.

Also, if the belt is still squeaking, replace it, and check the tensioner and all pulleys. A slipping belt will also cause weird issues. I'd also recommend replacing your thermostat since you got it so hot.