Ive written on this guys/gals before and the hell continues. Feb 2022 on my way home, belt comes off engine, lose all power associated with belt 3.8. Get home and belt is laying in engine compartment, power steering pump in laying loose attached to lines only. So I begin the hell of reaching the pump which involves removing tire, taking nuts off strutt, removing bolts from chassy holding engine, taking off bolts to motor mount, removing lines from power steering and finally getting to pump. 1st time, pump somehow ripped the bolts out of engine block. So, I rethread the holes. buy new bolts, replace pump because it broke the holes on it, then reinstall new pump and reverse the procedure to put it back together. November 2022, same damn thing, belt flies off, anyway, same thing as in Feb. So pump ripped new thread out and this time broke off the corner of the block where the outside pump mounts. This is where it gets nasty. There is no way to mount the pump back in the same holes, so I get a heavy piece of steel and mount the steel plate on engine block with drill 2 holes to mounts the plate to the engine and then 2 new holes to mount the pump to the plate. I make sure the pullys are lined up and purchase a 1/2 inch shorter belt to allow for the distance I cut to mount the new pump. Get it all buttoned up,. started, runs excellent, all is good again. This just happened last week. I pull into the gas station, all my dash lights come on, steering gets hard and I bury my head in the steering when with disbelief. The belt is laying behind the car, pop the hood and the damn pump is laying loose again just like the first time. It has ripped the allen cap head bolts out this time that I used for their strength, and Im just sick. This is killing me to do this again. There is nowhere to make new bolt holes to reinstall yet another pump. Im 60 years old and this is hard on my physically trying to do this alone and the damn awkward position I have to get in to work under this damn thing seeing as I only have my garage to use and its just so hard to reach this pump and this try to hold everything while trying to line this up or that up and everything I do hurts my body. I just cant keep doing this. I tried for the past 5 days to reinstall it again. relocate the pump again for new holes and after 48 hours of the heat outside and sore muscles all over me. I once again get it all back together, pully is lined up, belt fits perfect. new fluid again. I start it, pop, the belt flies off. my new bolts and holes didn't hold even right off the bat. I am disabled too. I need help. I am in Springfield MO and if anyone knows someone close that can help me figure this out I really need it. What I want to do is write GM and tell them this was the stupidest fuc***g place they have ever put a power steering pump and to put something that need fluid on the bottom side of rear of a motor they ought to have their asses kicked. I tell you what it is, these damn engineers dont have to work on the fu**ing things so **** on us. I know, your thinking there has to be a reason a 3.8 keep ripping the damn pump off. Yes, there is, but I sure as hell dont know it. Im to the point that I hate the car just because of this. I dont read where others have had this problem but my guess is that for some reason the engine has weaken in this area allowing the bolts to rip the thread out. Any help is welcome and appreciated. Thank you

 

You'd mentioned in a previous thread that the bolt holes in the block had split / broken completely after one of the fix attempts - they had to have been previously damaged for that to happen. Id bet someone before you had the pump out and either cross threaded the bolts or over tightened them and started a crack. Once cracked, it'll never hold again as each heat cycle will loosen things up slightly until it all falls apart again.

My suggestions in order of most to least expensive:
-Sell the car as a mechanics special and just cut your losses and buy something else. Probably won't get much more than scrap value for it, but at least you'll be done with it. You'll probably be out at least a couple grand to get something else that runs and drives though.
-Get a used short block out of a local junkyard (3800 cars are a dime a dozen and engines are dirt cheap) and drop that in. Should be able to pull this off for well under a grand, even including fluids and such. Of course if you had to pay labor for this, it would probably come out more expensive than the item above.
-Lastly, the ultra cheap method - just bypass the power steering altogether. Swap to ribbed idler and a shorter belt and loop the rack. You'll be up and running again in an hour for $50 (minus power steering of course). With the 3800, you don't need any other parts to bypass the pump - you just come off the left of the balancer, up and over the tensioner clockwise (hence the need for a ribbed idler instead), then under the water pump and back over to the alternator as usual.




No offense, but dont waste your time. They don't care at all - that engine hasn't been made in 10+ years now. Anyone who had any significant engineering pull in the "modern" 3800 design process back in the 80s and early 90s is either retired or dead at this point and there isn't a single thing on this engine that has carried through to their current engine lineup.

Ill agree it would be nice to have it somewhere easier to access, but frankly there is FAR worse out there now - especially newer engines. In typical operation, having to refill this would likely be a one time job (if the pump failed once in a normal engine lifespan), so it wouldn't be a high priority to have easily accessible.