Intermittent power steering

fivaxis

Registered User
I have a problem (one of many) with my car. I just finished doing HG rebuild, I replaced the power steering pump because the reservoir was cracked and was leaking.

At first the steering worked fine, but now it's having a lot of trouble. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. At one point it completely quit working for a couple minutes, then started half working again. Also sometimes I'll be turning and have to use a lot of effort, then all of a sudden it will work and it causes me to jerk the wheel.

I put all new fluid in it (Valvoline SynPower) but it is chocolate colored already so I will change it out a couple more times (turkey baster method). Could it be the half synthetic fluid? I may try just some cheap fluid to see if it helps. I'm hoping I don't need a new rack, I already have enough work to do on the car.
 
The Ford P/S pump in our cars calls for good old ATF. Not powersteering fluid, and certainly not synthetic stuff.

It sounds like you have air in the system. It can be a beotch to get out. I did mine by taking off the line coming back from the p/s cooler and then by hand turning the Power Steering pump pulley. Pouring new fluid in the top as old fluid came out the bottom until it was clean and bright red.
 
I did have a ton of air in it, I turned the wheel back and forth like 50 times and air finally stopped coming out. Haven't had a chance to drive it, I resealed my intake tubes and want to wait for the silicone to dry. It did seem to work at idle, if it still doesn't work I'll change the fluid to ATF.
 
Well I think I got it fixed, at least I sure hope so. I made sure all the air was out of the system by jacking up the front end and turning the wheels back and forth with the car not running. A good tip here is that it's easier to actually grab the front wheel and turn it back and forth instead of turning the steering wheel.

I got my turkey baster and 2 quarts of type F ATF for power steering fluid, then I:
1- Removed fluid from reservoir with baster
2- Added the new Type F ATF
3- Started car and turned the wheels back and forth several times while revving to 2k rpm.
4- Repeat.

There were a LOT of tiny metal particles (looked like glitter) in the fluid I kept removing, I don't know if these were from the new pump or what. After going through 1 and 1/3 quarts I was still having some trouble, I was not getting power steering at idle but it would work if I revved to 2k RPM. Well I took it out for a 15 minute drive and it seems to be working better now, much more consistent. I'm going to drive it a while and then change out the fluid once more. Hopefully I won't have any more problems with it.
 
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