Symptom: A couple of days before my power steering went totally out, I had noticed some groaning from the power steering when I had the wheel hard over. After making a U-turn to park in front of the house, the power steering died. Fortunately I wasn’t on a twisty road somewhere. The next morning, with the wheels straight, the pump was groaning and I had no power steering.
Troubleshooting: The TSRM wasn’t much help for troubleshooting, so I searched the archives here. This is much easier than trying to search the Yahoo group archives! Possible causes were:
- Clogged filter in the reservoir tank (which turned out to be the problem)
- Bad pump
- Bad belt tension
- Bad tie rods, etc
The belt tension was OK, so I went after the cheapest solution first – Reservoir filter. A new pump would be $130, and I would have to pull the reservoir anyway, since a new pump doesn’t come with a reservoir.
I ended up having to pull the entire pump/reservoir assembly because one bolt (of 4) holding the reservoir to the pump is behind a flange for the pump pivot and I could not get a wrench on it. You also have to remove the pulley from the pump to get out the pivot bolt (used a 2x4 to wedge the pulley to keep it from turning). I also pulled the upper timing belt cover to gain some more clearance, but this wasn’t necessary.
With the reservoir off, I could not see through the filter. The screen filter covers the entire bottom of the reservoir, not just the outlet hole, and cannot be removed without undoing the crimps on the tank lid (and maybe not even then), but that turned out to be unnecessary. Lightly scraping the screen with a screwdriver blade, I figured there was about 4 mm (1/8 inch) of gunk covering the screen. The fluid I had drained was also pretty dark, despite having been flushed about 2 years ago. I then cleaned the tank with Simple Green and water. I also stuffed some used fabric softener dryer sheets (unlike paper towels, they don’t tear easily) into the tank to scrape off gunk, and repeated until clean. Lots of little chunks came out. I dried out the tank using compressed air. I also flushed some new PS fluid through the pump, which turned easily by hand.
After putting everything back together, the pump ran fine. The clogged filter had caused the pump to cavitate, causing a loss of power steering. I then flushed out the old black fluid so I don’t clog the filter again soon. I’ll be watching the color more carefully in the future, and whenever I flush the system, I’ll also consider pulling the tank and clean it as well, since flushing the system doesn’t remove the gunk that is already on the filter.
Based on this experience, I recommend cleaning out the reservoir tank the next time you flush the power steering fluid. 2 hour job. As always, YMMV
Troubleshooting: The TSRM wasn’t much help for troubleshooting, so I searched the archives here. This is much easier than trying to search the Yahoo group archives! Possible causes were:
- Clogged filter in the reservoir tank (which turned out to be the problem)
- Bad pump
- Bad belt tension
- Bad tie rods, etc
The belt tension was OK, so I went after the cheapest solution first – Reservoir filter. A new pump would be $130, and I would have to pull the reservoir anyway, since a new pump doesn’t come with a reservoir.
I ended up having to pull the entire pump/reservoir assembly because one bolt (of 4) holding the reservoir to the pump is behind a flange for the pump pivot and I could not get a wrench on it. You also have to remove the pulley from the pump to get out the pivot bolt (used a 2x4 to wedge the pulley to keep it from turning). I also pulled the upper timing belt cover to gain some more clearance, but this wasn’t necessary.
With the reservoir off, I could not see through the filter. The screen filter covers the entire bottom of the reservoir, not just the outlet hole, and cannot be removed without undoing the crimps on the tank lid (and maybe not even then), but that turned out to be unnecessary. Lightly scraping the screen with a screwdriver blade, I figured there was about 4 mm (1/8 inch) of gunk covering the screen. The fluid I had drained was also pretty dark, despite having been flushed about 2 years ago. I then cleaned the tank with Simple Green and water. I also stuffed some used fabric softener dryer sheets (unlike paper towels, they don’t tear easily) into the tank to scrape off gunk, and repeated until clean. Lots of little chunks came out. I dried out the tank using compressed air. I also flushed some new PS fluid through the pump, which turned easily by hand.
After putting everything back together, the pump ran fine. The clogged filter had caused the pump to cavitate, causing a loss of power steering. I then flushed out the old black fluid so I don’t clog the filter again soon. I’ll be watching the color more carefully in the future, and whenever I flush the system, I’ll also consider pulling the tank and clean it as well, since flushing the system doesn’t remove the gunk that is already on the filter.
Based on this experience, I recommend cleaning out the reservoir tank the next time you flush the power steering fluid. 2 hour job. As always, YMMV