What are the symptoms of a power steering pump going bad? I now have a high pitch whine which gets louder and higher pitch as rpms are increased, especially noticeable in lower gears. Steering input has remained the same.

I don't know the symptoms, but have you checked the PS fluid level?
Are you sure it is the power steering pump, my old alternator made a varying high pitched whine before it died (bearings?)
Vacuum leaks ?
The onlt P.S. failure I knew of was a bad fluid leak.
Good luck. :confused:

Fluid level is good. I am using synthetic (Valvoline) power steering fluid, that wouldn't do anything would it? The belt does seem to be a tad on the loose side. The alternator is fine.

The Saginaw pump is very forgiving for use with various power steering fluids.

Having said this, however, the power steering fluid that is available from GM dealers is the only fluid that is specifically formulated to operate with the Saginaw pump. It also has been tested in 10s of thousands of laboratory tests and millions of miles of vehicle testing.

Are you sure it's not the alternator? Anyway, good news is that you can get a rebuilt pump pretty cheap. The pump in my -69 is leaking around the shaft, so I went to Auto Zone today to see if they had a new one. You can buy it with reservoir ($54.99) or without ($49.99), so it was a nice surprise that A: they have it in stock, and B: I can afford it graemlins/thumbsup.gif