Something blew out on my power steering yesterday neer the rack on the side toward the exhaust pipe. Now i am without PS.

Boy, these things steer like pigs, or I've forgotten what its like without PS.

ANyway, how important is it to change the PS unit quickly?

The funny thing is, my idle got better after the the PS unit blew. It used to stall out at idle. Now smooth as a glassy day on the water. The idle problem was probably a sign of the unit going bad.

 

Sounds like maybe you blew a seal in the rack and pinion. If this is the case, you probably lost all your fluid. I would suggest taking off your power steering belt to avoid screwing the pump, which would still be turning with no fluid, at least until you find/fix the problem.

 

I would like to, but the ps pump is connected to the water pump and the main pulley, and the belt adjustment is on the ps pully.

I think its OEM and so I'll just replace it when I determine what part failed. I just don't want it to freeze up on me.

 

Well, it's kind of important to see what blew. It could be a rack seal in which the real solution is to swap in a new rack. It is equally likely the pressure hose blew where it mounts to the rack. Regardless, running a p/s pump dry is something that should be avoided. How long it will survive depends a lot on what condition it's in. On a 20 year old car it's a crap shoot. But...p/s pumps are dirt cheap at the j/y.

 

Obviously, the best thing to do would be to find/fix the problem and not drive the car until then. If you have to drive the car for whatever reason in the meantime, I still recommend taking the P/S pump out of the loop. You may have to get creative with the belt routing; I once ran my water pump off of the alternator pulley, which on my car -'91 745T- is a two belt pulley with only one being used. In any case, if you continue to run the P/S pump with no fluid it will seize, probably sooner than later, and this often results in a broken belt as well, leaving you with just what you're trying to avoid : nothing driving the water pump.