Weird one - Vauxhall Omega steering pump pulley gouging into anti-roll bar !

[Scumball]

WTF ?
Anyone come across this before ?
The anti-roll bar bushes are dry and in good condition.
So are the engine mounts.
This has gotten progressively worse over the last week - and sounds VERY
nasty on a right hand bend or on reversing.
Would the steering pump wear enough to allow the shaft
off-centre that far ?
It's like the front of the engine has dropped a few centimetres - how could
this happen ?
TIA

Yours, very puzzled.
SB

 

[Mike]

\Not sure how relevant this is but a few years ago I used to have a rover
216 vitesse that would throw the alternator belt for fun. I found that the
bottom pulley was out of alignment with the alternator. queer thing about it
is that the alternator was NOT bolted to the block, but something else -cant
remember what. anyhow, the engine mount at that end of the engine also
looked fine, but although it had 3 bolts into the block, 1 had snapped a
long time ago, which left 2 holding that end of the engine. when a second
one snapped, the engine dropped a bit, pivoting around the one remaining
bolt, throwing the pulleys out. Sorry for rambling on a bit, but I am
illustrating that the engine mounts may LOOK fine, but to have a closer look
at the bolts. and not just the ones closest to the ARB. hope this gives you
something to go on.

Mike

 

[adder]

\Not sure how relevant this is but a few years ago I used to have a rover
216 vitesse that would throw the alternator belt for fun. I found that the
bottom pulley was out of alignment with the alternator. queer thing about it
is that the alternator was NOT bolted to the block, but something else -cant
remember what. anyhow, the engine mount at that end of the engine also
looked fine, but although it had 3 bolts into the block, 1 had snapped a
long time ago, which left 2 holding that end of the engine. when a second
one snapped, the engine dropped a bit, pivoting around the one remaining
bolt, throwing the pulleys out. Sorry for rambling on a bit, but I am
illustrating that the engine mounts may LOOK fine, but to have a closer look
at the bolts. and not just the ones closest to the ARB. hope this gives you
something to go on.

Mike

It's a bit like this on my carlton (similar to the omega I suspect) -
the power steering pulley is nowhere near in line with the crankshaft
pulley.