So I was coming home from work this morning (2am) and i decided to blow a donut a quarter mile from my house. After about 4 or 5 of em I headed toward my house only to realize i had no power steering. When i got it in my garage i opened the hood to what I thought would be power steering fluid. What i was greeted with instead was smoke and oil all over the engine. Its late and i don't have a jack right now to take a peak at it. Sorry no pics yet... What the hell could have happened?

I suspect a blown crank seal but why the loss of power steering?

Also the engine oil level was still up and it wasn't pissing out when the car was off...

Any ideas?

 

Well if you were doing donuts, and you were holding the steering wheel all the way to "lock" position, you probably blew out your power steering pump. (Explains why you don't have power steering anymore too.) Get a new one, and don't do donuts with the wheel turned all the way!

It's never a good idea to hold the wheel to lock position - it really stresses out the entire PS system.

 

If it was the power steering pump wouldnt i see power steering fluid?

 

Power steering turns brown after a while, if it was oil everywhere you would be low.

 

Are you sure it's not PS fluid?

 

Aged PS fluid will turn a dark brownish color almost that of engine oil...

 

Well, I'll share this, when I back my car into my garage, I have to do a 3 point turn of sorts and I have to have my wheel turned hard over 2 times. Doing my cam swap, I saw what looked like oil all over the oil pan. In looking at it, it appears that a lower PS hose has started to blow out and spray. So PS pump/line would be my guess as well