2001 Sport Trac No Power Steering

[rhalls]

Hello all!

Figured I'd ask this here since I haven't been able to figure it out myself.

We bought our explorer used from a family friend due to it not having power steering and the original owner didn't want to get it fixed. We lived with it like that for a few years before trying to fix it ourselves.

My father disassembled the system and cleaned the lines, suspecting a clog, flushed the system and added new fluid with a cleaner to bust anything else loose. After putting it back together the steering came back and worked great for about a week before seizing up again and back to no power steering. There are no leaks in the system as far as we can tell (no loss of fluids), and no sounds coming from the engine when steering (no whining or grinding). He said the motor seemed fine, so at this point we're kinda stumped.

Any ideas?

 

[vroomzoomboom]

try pulling the return line (the part that goes into the reservoir), put it in a plastic bottle and plug the end it goes into in the reservoir, fill the reservoir back up and start it. if fluid comes out, you know the pump is good, and the rack might be done