I have hydraulic steering
so what appears to be a leaky cooler on the non-functional PS engine (port).
My pwr assist comes from the starboard side pump

Apparently when rigging they just run the fluid in a loop to the cooler and back when not hooked to steering and leave the parts pump/ressy/cooler there.

Instead of replacing the cooler for no good reason, or removing everything and replacing with all the appropriate idler only brackets/parts ect.plus no doubt a different belt...

Can I just leave the pump there? It is dry I imagine as the reservoir is dry and looks the entire volume of PS fluid in the port bilge mostly back on the notch it looks.
so the pump is prolly already toast

will the pump sieze and create havoc with burning up/throwing a belt and trashing a bunch of chit?

just very busy with other things and would rather dick with the delete or whatever end of season...

No, you can't run it dry.

you can't run it dry, but you could run a loop from the pump back to itself bypassing the cooler. Not ideal but should get by as I don't think the pump would build much heat just pumping fluid in a loop.

If you don't want to spend the money on the replacement idle pulley, you just loop it. Alot of boat builders do it that way.

Dont run it dry!! It will burn up

well it has already run dry for some unknown amount of time, so who knows if it's toast now or not??

I considered the loop as well if the cooler is leaking I was just gonna put a piece of tubing in and bypass the cooler for the PS fluid.

that little cooler is $130+ but it's not about that.
I was just looking for the quickest temporary get around.

replace non-essential dormant parts
or delete the PS altogether on the port engine, which requires idler parts for the belt routing

Throw some oil in a blender and let it run for 20 minutes and then tell me how hot it is.

Ken

A power steering pump isn't a blender. Yeah, it will add some heat, but not much, the heat will dissipate in the hose loop. I did say it wasn't ideal, but he'll be fine. I have had cars and trucks with no power steering cooler.

Now if you just dead ended the pressure hose and let it pump through the relief, then now your building some heat!!

And the heat comes from the discharge pressure, not much of that when it pours directly into the reservoir.

Just about every twin engine setup I have seen a with power steering pump on each engine has the power steering lines on one of the engines looped from the factory.