I think my power steering pump is dead -- help?

[blee]

Earlier tonight, I was headed out when I noticed that there was a strange whirring/knocking sound coming from the engine that varied with engine speed, would occasionally go away, but would then come back. At first it sounded a bit like "marbles in a can," but my M50 doesn't have VANOS.

Anyway, on the way home I stopped at a gas station and took a look under their lights. I could make out the silhouette of some pulley that seemed to be wobbling a bit more than it should've. Then, after gassing up, I was less than a mile down the road when I heard/felt something give. The noise went away suddenly and I found myself without any steering assist. :o The rest of the car was running just fine.

I was only two miles from home, so I muscled my way to my parking spot. Before I got there, the battery light and the parking brake light lit up on my IP cluster and never turned off until I shut down the car. It's too dark outside for me to take a look at anything until the morning.

Has this happened to anyone? What should I expect to see in the morning? And is the only solution a new steering box? #@#$#!@#!...

And while I'm at it, is there any parts exchangeability between the non-VANOS M50 pump and one from, say, an E36?

[shogun]

That pulley bearing seized, causing the belt to break, so no more alternator working, causing the engine to draw the battery empty.
Check it first, report what you see and then we can help.
The broken belt is also why your power steering did not work anymore.

[blee]

I went out with a flashlight, since I figured a broken belt would be easy to spot. yup, that's exactly what happened. How strange; when the alternator locked up on a car I owned many years ago, the engine ground to a stop almost immediately. Guess I had enough juice to get myself home, but just barely. I got lucky.

I didn't get a chance to reach down there and try to move it, but it looks like the pulley is held on by three screws...and one of them appears to have backed out a bit. Dunno if that's from the mechanical failure of the bearing or something else. I'm guessing the only solution is a replacement pump; should I even bother trying to mess with the pulley/bearing alone?

Also, I know the dead p/s leaves this car almost unsafe to drive, but is it safe to bypass the pump with a shorter belt until I can order the part and have it installed?

[blee]

How weird. The bolts that hold the pulley onto the pump were all finger-loose, and one of them had actually backed out a good 1/4 inch. It looks like the belt lost its ribs and eventually tore from the wobbling movement of the pulley.

The pump itself is not seized, it still spins by hand. I'm going to put the pulley back on that sucker and see what happens first. Gotta go look up the right serpentine belt length...more news after I try this. :)

[blee]

To finish up this little story...

I placed the pulley back on the steering pump, using some blue Loctite to help keep the bolts in place this time. The steering appears to be working normally after replacing the serpentine belt. One thing that drove me bananas was that I couldn't figure out the routing of the belt, since the old one was completely shredded. I finally found this to help me:

http://www.pelicanparts.com/BMW/techarticles/E36-Belt-Replacement/pic4.jpg

Until I found that pic, I kept wondering why the damn belt seemed about three inches too long for the engine. The Bentley manual really ought to have the routing diagram in it.