Power steering ???

[sean4385]

Yesterday my steering wheel started to become very hard to turn. I checked the PS fluid and it looks real black and dirty.

Is it possible to drain this stuff out on your own and refill it?? If so could someone try to describe how to do this?

Thanks,
Sean

 

[viiidude]

Is it possible to drain this stuff out on your own and refill it?? If so could someone try to describe how to do this?

There are two approachs to working on the PS fluid. One is to use a suction gun and suck out the fluid from the reservoir. You'll only be able to remove about 10 ozs at a time this way and the system probably holds about a quart. So it would be remove some, add some to the reservior fill line, start engine, turn wheels, and then repeat until the color of fluid is a nice red.

The other approach is a flush. A helper will make this easier. The best way, is to set a funnel (to act as a big reservoir) on top of the reservoir. Get ready with as much p/s fluid as you can afford (you may even want to get the cheap stuff to flush only). After you disconnect the return line from somewhere (the lower the better), immediately start filling up the funnel with fluid, then start the engine. Turn the wheel a few times to really get things clean. Keep doing this till you start running low on fluid.

After your done, let the "cheap stuff" drain out as much as possible. You even want to turn the wheel with the engine off. This will force out alot of fluid.

When done with all this, connect the return line and fill up the reservoir. Crank up the car for a few seconds and fill it up several times. After a few times doing this, fill it up again and crank the car up and turn the wheel to the left and the right a few times and then shut it off while the wheel is turned. Wait about 5 minutes in between times doing this and always keep the fluid level where it needs to be and shut off the engine with the wheel turned the other way. The fluid will become a white milky color. This is normal and is nothing but air bubbles. Keep doing this until the color of the fluid gets as red as possible. Keep the top of the reservoir off while doing this. When you get it as red as possible, put the cap back on the reservoir and go drive it. It will bleed more air out as you drive the car.

Hope this helps.

The flush part was originally written by Eddie Spinks

 

[Hartman]

Where is the return line? I need to drain mine.

It seems over complicated to me. Drain the old fluid, put new in, turn the wheel a few times with the cap off, drain that, and put more fluid in, turn wheel more times to bleed the system, and then you're done. Does that sound like a good way to do it?

 

[viiidude]

Originally posted by Hartman
Where is the return line? I need to drain mine.

It seems over complicated to me. Drain the old fluid, put new in, turn the wheel a few times with the cap off, drain that, and put more fluid in, turn wheel more times to bleed the system, and then you're done. Does that sound like a good way to do it?

I'll keep this simple (lol). The return line goes from the PS cooler to the PS pump assembly.